Feel the Air
by scorpclaw
Summary: Contains SonJet yaoi. Sonic and his friends take to the skies on a massive ship that will take them to several race tracks. On these race tracks, they will face off against hundreds of teams in a tournament, including the legendary Team Babylon. However, there is chaos that ensues on this ship, and an unexpected romance arises.
1. Departure

Feel the Air

Chapter 1 – Departure

Everything was quite normal with Mobius at the moment. Sonic, a blue hedgehog, lives with his two friends, Tails and Knuckles, and fights off the evils of his enemy, Dr. Eggman. But now, there has been silence for the three heroes for quite some time. Dr. Eggman hasn't been plotting anything, and it has left all of them, especially Sonic, extremely bored.

Fortunately for them, that was all about to change that afternoon.

It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and Sonic and Tails were doing what they normally do. Sonic was trying to find something that he liked, and Tails was working on another one of his inventions. Knuckles was away guarding the Master Emerald.

Shortly after, though, there was a knock at the door and a voice that said, "Mail call". Sonic's mail had to be personally brought to him since he doesn't own a mail box. Sonic turned off the television, and walked over to the door.

He opened it to find a purple cat standing there with a few envelopes in her hand and several more in her large mail bag. She brought her paws forward to hand over the mail, and Sonic gladly took it from her.

"Thanks, Talia."

Talia smiled and nodded. "You have a good day now, Mr. Sonic."

"You, too." Talia then ran off to continue delivering mail on her route.

Sonic closed the door and shuffled through all of the envelopes to see the contents. Two of them were junk mail from a ridiculous clothing company that Amy signed Sonic up for, and then another one was a house bill. Sonic set that one aside, and then looked at the last two envelopes. They looked like junk mail, so he was just going to throw them away. He threw the first one into the trash can, and just before he was about to toss the second one, something stood out to him.

Sonic got a good look at it, and noticed a very familiar logo at the top right corner of the letter. He recognized it as Eggman's personal emblem.

Sonic didn't even know if he should open the letter, but it was Eggman he was dealing with, so he decided that this could've been important. Sonic ran his finger through the sticky portion of the envelope and managed to smoothly open without any issues.

He tossed the envelope and opened up the folded paper on the inside. It read:

"_Eggman Corporations Presents: the Grand Mobius Race!_

_Due to the high demand of the previous races, Dr. Eggman has decided to respond to the ravage amount of fans request for another race. The only difference with this one is that this race is bigger and better than ever!_

_First off, all racers will be happy to hear that they will now be chauffeured across the galaxy in one of Eggman's very own 'Egg Colossus'. This monstrous flying craft will contain large and pampered rooms for all of the contestants, and facilities like fancy restaurants, hilarious comedy clubs, and an enormous dance club. This will ensure the best results from all of our amazing racers, and thus best results for all of our viewers. _

_Racers will compete against the best of the best teams around the universe. Several teams have already signed up for this extravaganza, including the alleged and popular Team Babylon. So sign up using the attached sign-up sheet as quickly as possible, and you may just be able to win the prize of large amounts of money and gems!"_

Sonic read the letter twice to get all of the information into his mind. After reading the second time, his eyes stopped at 'Team Babylon'. This brought his mind back to the times where he was at their necks. He didn't like Wave and Storm. Wave is extremely arrogant, and Storm, although he is obedient, is dumb and annoying.

But Jet. There was something different about Jet. There was something about Jet that made Sonic smile whenever the two of them raced them together. Jet was a good competitor and could actually keep up with him. Sonic almost even thought that the two of them could've been good friends if Jet wasn't as arrogant as Wave and as dumb as Storm.

The thoughts of Jet and the rest of Team Babylon escaped Sonic's mind, and he merely just thought about the race. According to the letter, he only had one week for him to submit his sign-up sheet and two weeks until they actually departed. That seemed like somewhat short notice to him, but he was eager to actually do something exciting for a change.

Sonic then took the letter and when into the garage where Tails was working. Sonic went next to the two-tailed fox and sat down in a nearby chair. At the look of Sonic's presence, Tails stopped whatever he was doing and turned his attention towards Sonic.

"Hey Sonic, what's up?"

"Good, I just got the mail. When Knuckles gets home, we'll deal with the house bill together, alright."

Tails sighed. "Alright. I never liked dealing with those ridiculous bills, but I guess everyone has to at some point.

"Yeah." Sonic paused, and before Tails could continue on with his invention, Sonic continued. "Do you remember our races with Team Babylon?"

Tails chuckled. "You mean the races with the cheap, annoying, ridiculous, arrogant, dumb, fast, evil, flabbergasting team that wins every race."

"Uh… no I'm pretty sure that's the… other team." Sonic chuckled.

Tails giggled along with him. "Yeah, what about them?"

"Well, we just got a letter from Eggman Corporations and apparently they are hosting another set of races."

"Eggman Corporations?" Sonic handed the letter over to Tails. Tails looked it over for a few minutes and then looked back up to Sonic. "What do you think about this?"

"I actually want to do this, to tell you the truth. We haven't exactly been doing anything exciting lately with everything being so peaceful, so I thought we had nothing to lose if we just try it out."

"I guess you're right. Besides, I want another chance to get Wave's head onto a stick." Sonic laughed brightly. "So when does this whole thing start so that we can get start getting ready?"

Sonic pointed to the bottom of the letter. "It says that it starts two Wednesdays from now, so that's a little less than two weeks."

Tails looked at where Sonic was pointing and continued reading beyond that. "It also has a 10 ring sign-up fee for each participant, so I'm sure we'll be able to get 30 rings should Knuckles decide to join us."

"I'm sure he will. He has just as much of a beef with Team Babylon than both of us, and he would be more than happy to give them a clean rematch."

Tails laughed semi-deviously. "I truly hope so." Tails paused and brought the sign-up sheet over to his own printer. He designed it so that it could scan certain documents at a high speed and print them out three times as fast as a normal printer. He scanned the sign-up sheet, and two duplicates were spat out of the machine.

Tails kept the original document for himself and handed the other two to Sonic. "One will be for you, and you can leave the other one on the kitchen table for Knuckles to find."

"Alright."

Sonic exited the garage and Tails went back to work. He then dropped the letter off onto the kitchen table and headed back into the living room to watch some television.

A couple of hours later, Knuckles returned from guarding the Master Emerald and headed into the kitchen. When he did, he saw the letter that Sonic placed there earlier that day. He picked it up and read its contents while going over to the living room. When he got there, he leaned against the couch that Sonic was sitting and finished the last details of the letter. When he did, he lowered his head and got Sonic's attention. Sonic turned off the TV and faced Knuckles.

"Did you see this, Sonic?"

"Yeah, I left it for you so you can take a look."

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"Well, I think it would be a pleasant opportunity for the three of us to get back at those Babylonians. The minute I saw the 'legendary Team Babylon' in that letter, I knew that I was finally going to get my revenge on Jet."

"Oh, trust me; I have a beef to settle with those Babylon idiots."

"I kind of figured you would be. Tails and I want to do it, so are you in or are you out?"

"I want to go with you guys, but who would watch the Master Emerald while we're gone. With crooks like Rouge the Bat wandering around, I just can't leave that thing unsupervised for more than a day."

"Then you need to find yourself a trustworthy replacement. Have you ever thought of asking Team Chaotix to do something for once? Espio might be a good person for the job, and Vector has always been asking for some cash ever since we've known him.

"I don't like the three of them over at Team Chaotix. The name of their team suits them very well."

"Well you hate Team Babylon even more, don't you? Can't you just ignore the fact that you hate Espio, Vector, and Charmy for a week and come with us? We need a third person on our team anyways, and I don't trust anybody as much as I trust you."

"Really? You trust me that much that you don't even want anybody else on your team? I guess that's good enough for me."

"Good. I'll call them tomorrow for you and ask them alright?"

"Sounds good to me."

Knuckles went away, and Sonic went over to the kitchen table where he left his sign-up sheet. He sat down with a pencil in hand and began filling the paper out.

Two weeks later, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were all ready for the trip and the races. They got a letter three days before that stated that the three should wait at a certain spot for the ship to arrive. Sort of like a bus stop.

As instructed, the three of them followed the distinct instructions and ended up in Sickle Valley, which was only a few minutes away from Sonic's house. Once they got there, a few familiar faces were there as well. When they got close, they noticed that Vector, Charmy, Cream, and Vanilla were standing there with their luggage and gear.

The three of them greeted all of them. Sonic then asked, "Vanilla, are you competing in the races, too?"

Vector answered for her, "Since you asked Espio to watch the Master Emerald while we're gone, we needed somebody else to replace him on our team, so I asked Vanilla."

"Well this is going to be fun. I wish the three of you the best of luck."

Vector, Charmy, and Vanilla nodded and said 'thank you'.

They then chatted with each other while Tails played around with Cream. After about ten minutes, a small object came over the horizon. With somewhat soft engines, all of them didn't even know it was there until it was close to them.

The large, somewhat intimidating ship then showed up in front of them, and they all took a few steps back to witness how massive it was. The ship was going to hold hundreds of teams, but they didn't know it was going to be so big.

After a few minutes of careful procedures, the ship landed smoothly on the ground, barely kicking up any dust. A minute later, a large pair of doors slid open, revealing a couple of black echidnas in guard uniforms. Both of them simultaneously asked the seven of them to enter. They nodded and continued to enter the massive machine.

Once inside, the two guards were eager to close the doors and signaled the captain to get the ship moving. There was a bit of shaking when it lifted off of the ground, but all-in-all, they thought that it was a smooth ride.

All seven of them went into the very elegant lobby and were in awe of how glamorous it looked. A very formal black hedgehog then approached them.

"Team names?"

Sonic said, "Team Sonic," and Vector said shortly after, "Team Chaotix."

"One moment, please." The black hedgehog then looked through his large bag that was separated into several files. Sonic assumed that the files were separated by team name. Even though there were a lot of them, the hedgehog was able to fluidly find two keys, one with a 'Sonic' etched into it, and another with a 'Chaotix' etched into it. Sonic imagined that the black hedgehog must have spent hours memorizing where every single key was located in the bag. He thought it was very convenient.

"Team Sonic, you are in room 98 on Deck 9. Team Chaotix, you are in room 93, also on Deck 9. There are pamphlets in your room that describe the events and activities that will occur on this ship. These pamphlets are replaced daily to update weather conditions and add and remove activities. The buffet on Deck 11 is open 24/7 and the three dining halls are open on Deck 5 for breakfast between 6 AM and 9AM and are open for dinner as well. You have assigned dinner times, which are located in your pamphlets, should you dine in the dining halls. However, if you do dine in the dining hall, all nights are formal night, and you must dress accordingly. Formal wear can be rented on Deck 7 in the Racer's Market. If you have any further questions, you may consult your pamphlets or talk to a crewmember at the Customer Service desk right here on Deck 3."

Without another word, the hedgehog walked away to accommodate another group. The seven of them gathered in a circle and Vanilla said, "Why don't we drop off our things in our rooms and get comfortable."

Sonic responded, "Alright. It looks like we're going to be just down the hall, so just knock on our door and we might be able to have breakfast together or something."

Vanilla smiled. "That sounds lovely, Sonic. Shall we go?" They all nodded and entered two nearby elevators (the elevators were too small to fit the seven of them and their luggage).

They exited when they reached Deck 9 and headed over to room 98. When they turned the corner to where the rooms were located, a familiar face popped out at them. When the three of them got close, they saw that Jet was waiting at their door to greet them.

Sonic took the lead and stopped right in front of Jet.

"Well, we meet again, Team Sonic. I heard that you guys were joining my competition, and I was eager to be the first to greet you."

Sonic smirked. "Well, too late. The boring black hedgehog that gave us a five-hour long speech about the ship beat you to it."

Jet held back a laugh. "You're very funny, hedgehog. We'll see what happens on the track." Jet then pushed past the three of them. He didn't go far, though, because he stopped at room 94 and took out his key. He put it into the lock and twisted, opening the door. He turned to look at the three shocked racers of 'Team Sonic'.

"Oh, you didn't hear? I'm just going to be a few doors from you. Won't that be exciting?" Jet then cackled to himself as he entered his room and closed the door behind him.

Knuckles brushed the side of his face. "Man, we've only been on this ship for ten minutes, and I already hate him again."

"You're not the only one," Tails added.

They all turned around, and Sonic used his key in door 98. In twisted perfectly and they were let into an amazing suite that was very well-furnished.

Knuckles smiled. "But… if we get to live in a place like this for a few weeks, then dealing with a person like Jet can't be all that bad."

The three of them plopped themselves onto their very comfortable beds and felt like they could fall asleep immediately in them. They were all ready for the trip of their lives.


	2. Friends

Feel the Air

Chapter 2 – Friends

The rest of the day was extremely lazy for the 'Sonic Team'. They simply lied around their bedroom for hours, skipping lunch and a 'mandatory' safety lesson given by a couple of the crew members. They've been through a lot already, so they didn't think a safety lesson would be necessary for them. Besides, it wouldn't have been the first time that they fell off of a ship.

Later that evening, all three of them got hungry at around the same time and were thinking about what they can do to get some food.

"We can go down into the dining hall," Tails offered.

Knuckles shook his head. "Yeah, but according to that boring instruction guy, all nights in the dining requires a suit or something. I'm not getting one of those."

Sonic was flipping through the Ship Pamphlet. "Besides, I think we missed our dinner time anyways. Let's go over to the buffet. I think it's open 24/7."

"I guess that's all we can do right now," Knuckles said. "Don't forget the key. I don't want to be going over to the information desk to get another one."

Sonic grabbed the room key on the table and said, "Alright, let's go."

The three of them exited their room and entered the elevator that was down the hall. They hit the button that read '11' and the elevator doors closed and took them up to the 11th deck.

When the doors opened, they were greeted by a large amount of food. Apparently, the buffet wasn't on the 11th deck, it was the 11th deck. Also, since it was pretty late and a lot of people were in the dining rooms, the place was pretty empty other than a couple dozen of people.

The three of them scattered to find a plate and some food that they thought they might like. Tails and Knuckles went for the more exotic foods, because they knew that they wouldn't eat anything 'special' when they get off of the ship, so they were making the most of it. Sonic, who was very simplistic, went over to the 'Mobian' food to find some chili dogs, hamburgers, and pizza.

When he went over there, though, he was greeted by a familiar green hawk who was gawking at an empty tray in the 'Mobian' food section. As Sonic got closer, he realized that Jet was annoyed because the tray for… chili dogs was empty.

Sonic, who was confused, walked over to Jet and placed his plate down on the counter. "You like chili dogs, too?"

"What," Jet said. He then turned to face Sonic. "Oh, Sonic. I thought you were just another one of them stalkers trying to get my autograph or something."

Sonic shook his head in disbelief. "You seem like the person who would like that kind of stuff, Jet."

"Well, I don't. I do this for the money and not the fame."

"I still don't really believe that, but whatever." Sonic paused for a second. "I guess I'll look somewhere else for something to eat."

Jet nodded and Sonic went away. To his surprise, Jet was going in the same direction he was. As he stopped in front of the hamburgers, Sonic outreached a hand to grab a burger. But instead of grabbing a hamburger, he ended up touching his hand onto another gloved hand. It belonged to Jet.

Sonic and Jet turned to face each other in discomfort. "I don't know, Jet. I think you're the one trying to stalk me and not the other way around."

Jet quickly retracted his hand. "Well just because we like the same food as each other doesn't mean I'm stalking you or something! I hate that sick exotic stuff over on the other side of the buffet. I would rather stick with the same stuff I have back at home."

Sonic blinked. "Oh, well… so do I."

Jet blinked too. But, in order to avoid any further awkwardness between the two of them, they each grabbed a hamburger and went their separate ways. Sonic sat down at a table next to a window that overlooked the clouds as they zoomed by in a flash. He then motioned for Tails and Knuckles to join him when they finished getting… whatever weird things were on their plates.

Knuckles sat down and looked over at Sonic's barren plate. "Sonic, don't eat too much. That hamburger may just give you a stomach ache if you eat too much of it." Tails and Knuckles giggled to themselves.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up you two. At least I don't have…" Sonic scanned both of their plates, trying to even relatively figure out what they got. "At least I don't have that stuff on my plate."

"What, it looks good, doesn't it," Tails asked with anticipation. Sonic looked the glob of food that was all different shades of brown and grey and just shook his head.

Knuckles shrugged his shoulder and slurped a piece of some kind of tentacle into his mouth, earning a shiver from Sonic. Knuckles laughed at Sonic's 'weakness'.

They continued eating their food and Sonic went away to get more food, knowing that Jet was no longer over there. Luckily, there was a new stock of chili dogs, so Sonic got three of them. He began eating that, and Tails and Knuckles went away to the bathroom. They said that they just need to wash their hands, but Sonic kind of figured that they have to throw up in the sink as well. He giggled to himself.

He continued eating his chili dogs when he then got a tap on his right shoulder. Sonic turned around saw that the person was Jet again. Sonic raised an imaginary eyebrow. "What's up, Jet?"

"Um… Wave and Storm just got back from eating in the dining room and they said they want to go to one of the comedy clubs in about an hour. We were wondering if you would… like to join us."

Sonic gave Jet a confused look and couldn't back saying something any longer. "Um, Jet. Sit down, we need to talk."

Jet, with a shrug, sat down where Tails was sitting, moving aside his plate of gruesome food.

"Jet… we didn't exactly get off on the right foot when we last saw each other and now, you are talking to me as if nothing happened."

Jet got somewhat frustrated and crossed his arms. "Is that a problem, Sonic? I'm trying to be nice to you, so can't you just accept that."

"No, because I think you want something in return for 'being nice to me'."

Jet got up and crossed his arms again. "That isn't it at all, you idiot hedgehog! Me and the team were talking, and we all knew that we're going to be on this blasted ship with each other for a long time! Would you rather us get along with each other so that we can actually be sane on this ship, or do you just want to glare at me when me, Wave, or Storm? We've already passed each other twice unintentionally, and it's going to happen a lot more."

Sonic was thrown aback by Jet. Not only was Jet officially putting Sonic in his place, but he was actually doing it logically too. Sonic turned his head for a brief second and Jet followed his gaze. They both saw that Tails and Knuckles were on their way back to the table. Sonic and Jet faced each other, calmer than they were a second ago.

"We'll be in the 'Laughing Chicken' if you want to join us. I guess I'll see you around if you don't show up."

Jet then left the table and headed for the elevators. That's when Knuckles and Tails returned to the table.

Knuckles sat down at the table, moving his food away from him, and said, "Were you just talking to Jet right now?"

Sonic nodded. "Yeah."

Tails, who was equally disgusted by his food, said, "What was he doing over here for?"

"Uh… he asked if we wanted to join Team Babylon down in the comedy club."

Knuckles chuckled to himself. "Oh, so you can ignore him and go somewhere else on the ship?"

Sonic shook his head and said, "No, I actually think it'll be a good idea if we went."

Knuckles and Tails gave Sonic somewhat of a blank stare. Tails then said, "Why would we want to do that? Right now Sonic, Team Babylon is kind of our enemy, and we need to stay focused if we want to beat them."

"I am staying focused. I am also trying to have a good time, unlike you two. So unless you would like to join me, I will join up with you later."

Sonic then left, and Knuckles and Tails looked at each other. Knuckles then said, "Is it me, or did Sonic just blow us off for… Jet?"

"I'm just going to ignore it and hope Sonic comes to his senses when he gets some sleep." Tails then paused and looked at the two plates of food on the table. "But for now, let's get these abominations off of this table before I throw up into another toilet."

Knuckles went green just thinking about it. He nodded and they went off to throw their 'food' away.

Sonic went over to one of the information boards that was next to the elevators and saw that there was a show in 15 minutes in the 'Laughing Chicken' on Deck 4. He took the elevator down to Deck 4 and entered the comedy club, looking around the see if Jet was there already.

On a quick scan to his left, Sonic saw Jet sitting with Storm and Wave towards the front. Sonic went down there. When he got there, he asked the three of them, "Do you have room for one more?"

Jet turned his head and smiled when he saw Sonic standing there. "Yes there is." Jet patted the seat next to him, signaling for Sonic to sit in it. Sonic awkwardly took the seat and tried to fake a smile towards the three of them.

Wave turned over to face Sonic and said in a somewhat frustrated voice, "Hey, Sonic."

Sonic didn't feel comfortable with Wave seeming frustrated. She can be as wild as Amy when she gets mad. "Hi, Wave. How are you?"

"Just fine," she said in the same tone of voice.

Sonic leaned towards Jet's ear and said, "What's her problem?"

Jet giggled to himself and whispered to Sonic, "She's had googly-eyes for the blue-jay over there for the past hour. She just went over there five minutes ago to ask him out and he says, "No thanks, sugar. Mordecai doesn't date no swallows." Jet sniggered to himself again and Sonic laughed along. This time, it was a real laugh.

Wave tried to ignore their laughing and they all waited for the show to start. Five minutes later, a skinny black cat swiftly does a double front flip onto the stage. The cat then backflips onto a stool and says into the microphone in front of her, "Are you all ready to laugh?"

Everyone in the audience began to clap and cheer for her. She then sits down the chair and brings the microphone closer to her.

As she begins her opening act, Jet leans into Sonic's ear and says, "A woman comedian? This should be interesting."

Sonic smiled. "You'd be surprised."

Jet nodded and laughed as the cat told her first couple of jokes.

All-in-all, the show was actually really good and funny. On two accounts, Jet intervened with the comedian by judging a couple of the jokes, but if anything, it only made the show funnier for Sonic.

After a good hour of whole-hearted comedy, the cat, Lizzy, tipped an imaginary hat to the audience and somersaulted off of the stage. With that, everyone began exiting the very large theater.

Sonic and Team Babylon stood and discussed with each other how funny the show was. All three of the Babylonians said they thought the show was really good, despite their heavy lack in humor.

Sonic then turned to Jet and said, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you were right Jet. I actually had a good time."

"I'm telling you Sonic. The more we get along now, the less we'll suffer later."

Sonic smiled. Jet was using that brain of his again.

Jet then said, "Why don't you join us for breakfast at the buffet tomorrow?"

Sonic nodded and thought it was good idea.

Wave added, "Bring Tails and Knuckles with ya, will you? I want to pick at Tail's brain like good times."

Sonic shrugged his shoulders and said, "That's up to them, I guess. Hopefully I'll be able to convince them that you guys aren't all that bad when you aren't on the race tracks." Sonic then laughed to himself. "Oh wait… you guys are bad on the race tracks too."

Jet lightly cackled to himself. "Don't push it, hedgehog. When we're on those tracks, it's game on."

"Wouldn't have it any other way. Good night, guys. Good luck with Mordecai, Wave."

Wave pouted and Jet cackled in his normal laugh again as Sonic left the theater.


	3. Final Arrivals

Feel the Air

Chapter 3 – Final Arrivals

Sonic left the theater with a smile on his face. He actually liked it that he made a friend out of an enemy like Jet.

Sonic turned a corner to head over to the elevators when he ran into Knuckles.

"Oh hey Sonic. Tails and I have been looking all over for you. Where have you been?"

"I was over at the Laughing Chicken watching a show with the Babylons."

"Oh, so you actually went to the show with them? You really amaze me Sonic that you would do something so stupid."

"Whatever, you were the one who was looking for me. What do you want?"

"Vanilla invited us to her room to hang out before we go to bed. If you're not spending too much time cuddling with Jet, then maybe you can join us."

Sonic gave Knuckles a blank look and said nonchalantly, "Haha, very funny, Knuckles. Yeah, I'll be up there in a minute. I'll just stop by our room for a second."

Knuckles went down the hallway and pressed the button for the elevator. Sonic joined him and they waited for a few seconds until the elevator doors slowly opened. They entered and Knuckles hit the button that read '9' on it, and the elevator doors began to close.

They rode up in silence and when they reached the 9th deck, they exited and went down the hallway to their rooms. Sonic went into his room and Knuckles stayed behind and entered Team Chaotix's room.

After entering the room, Sonic noticed that was another pamphlet on the bed. He looked for a couple of seconds and noticed that it was just informing about the activities that were occurring around the entire ship. For Eggman, he was shocked that this was all organized so well.

He was thinking if any of these events would be good for Jet to join him. 'I mean… Tails and Knuckles.' Sonic thought. 'Jet and I aren't that close of friends.'

Sonic left the pamphlet on the bed and then looked around the room. He had completely forgotten why he had come there in the first place and decided to leave without taking anything.

He then knocked on Vanilla's door, and Cream was the one to open it and greeted Sonic. He smiled at the young rabbit and gladly entered the ornate room. It was just as beautiful as their room.

Sonic sat on the ground next to Knuckles, who was explaining to Cream and Vanilla how to play poker. Sonic faintly listened, because he already knew several tricks in the card game.

The six of them played cards for about an hour until Vanilla pointed out that it was late and that it was far past Cream's bedtime. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles said their goodbyes and went back to their room, plowing themselves onto their beds. With the exhaustion of the very long day bearing a heavy weight on them, they were very quick to fall asleep as soon as they got into bed.

The next morning, Sonic was greeted by the sunshine that was flowing in through the windows. Sonic peeked an eye open and went over to the small window over at the corner of the room. When he looked out of it, he could see the clouds rushing by as the ship rushing past them. But, Sonic was really looking at the large sun, which was slowly coming over the horizon. Sonic smiled at how beautiful it looked.

He went away from the window and checked the alarm clock that was provided for them in the room. It read 7:04, which was about an hour earlier than Sonic normally woke up. He didn't mind, though, and simply stretched his arms out and scratched his stomach, which was now somewhat grumbling. Because of what happened last night, Sonic didn't get a big dinner, so he was pretty hungry.

He grabbed his room key and silently went out of the room, hoping that he wouldn't wake Tails or Knuckles up. When Sonic gently closed the door, he turned around and was about to go down the long hallway when he saw a familiar face running down it. It was a friend of Sonic's, Twig, a skinny hedgehog that looked very similar to Sonic, except that he had brown fur instead of Blue.

Sonic was curious as to why Twig was running so fast down the hallway, so he stopped him.

"Twig, it's good to see you and all, but you seem like you're in a hurry."

"Oh, hey Sonic," Twig said quickly with his deep voice. "I am in a bit of a hurry. I somehow got sucked into being on Amy's team, and I've already found a way to make her mad. She's chasing me right now, and I know the damage that her hammer is capable of."

Sonic looked around and saw that Amy was at the far end of the hallway, running towards the two of them. Sonic quickly turned back to Twig and said, "Why don't you hide in my room for a little bit? I'll handle Amy for you."

Twig closed his eyes and nodded. "Much obliged, Sonic. I can't think you enough."

Sonic unlocked and opened the door for Twig, who quickly ran in. Sonic gently closed the door again and waited to confront Amy.

When she got close, she said, "Sonic, open that door right now. I need to teach that hedgehog some manners."

Sonic shook his head and simply just walked away from her, heading for the elevators. Amy was pretty shocked that Sonic's only form of acknowledgement was a simple head now and decided to follow him.

"Sonic, where are you going? I told you to open that door."

"Amy, chill. We're on this ship for two reasons: to race and have a good time. Not to kill people with your hammer."

"Well I'm not having very much fun. Twig doesn't want to do anything with me and Big is too much of a dunce to have fun with either."

"Then why did you pick teammates like them. You don't really know Twig at all, and I'm pretty sure you don't like Big that much."

Amy pouted. "I only picked them because I couldn't be apart of your team or anybody else's team."

Sonic sighed. "Whatever." He then continued to walk over to the elevators. His slight hunger was motivating him to get over to the buffet as soon as possible. What he didn't know was that Amy was still following him.

"Hey, Sonic. Are you going up to eat breakfast?"

Sonic simply nodded in response, not in the mood for answering Amy's questions.

"Can I join you? It looks like Twig is going to be avoiding me for a little while, and I'm pretty sure Big is fishing in the indoor pool."

If Sonic hadn't been tired, he probably would've laughed at the Big thing. He looked over to Amy and saw that she was giving him the googly-eyes. He didn't want to deal with her, but he said, "Sure, Amy. I guess I don't want to be all alone when I eat either."

She smiled and giggled to herself. "Thank you, Sonic."

They turned on the next corner and pressed a button that calls an elevator. One arrived and it took the two of them to the 11th deck, where there were a lot of people moving around trying to get food.

Sonic went over to an area that had a bunch of pancakes and waffles and thought that it would be a good place to start. Amy followed him and they both grabbed a plate. They both filled their plate with two pancakes and a waffle. They then went around the rest of the place to see if there was any other food. After they stuffed their plates to the brim with a mountain of food, they looked around for an empty table. When they finally found one, they sat down and began chowing down.

As Sonic was shoveling heaps and heaps of food into his mouth, he watched as Amy was delicately eating her pancakes piece-by-piece. With the way she was eating and the amount of food that she had, it would take Amy at least an hour to finish it all.

Sonic then put his head back down and brought his focus back to his own food. The two of them then sat in silence as they each ate.

After eating so much, Sonic decided to get up and get something to drink. He grabbed a cup and filled it up with water. When he returned to his seat, he didn't realize that someone was following him back to his table.

"Hey, Sonic," a familiar voice said.

Sonic turned his head and saw that Jet was standing there. "And hello, uh… Abby."

Amy stopped eating her pancakes and glared at Jet. "It's Amy."

Jet sighed. "Whatever." Jet then returned his attention to Sonic. "I was wondering if all of Team Sonic would like to join Team Babylon for a game of ping-pong later this afternoon."

"You? Ping-pong? Who are you and what did you do with the real Jet?"

Jet raised an imaginary eyebrow. "I'm right here, hedgehog, and I hope you plan on losing when I take the competition without even trying."

"So I guess that makes you the king of ping-pong, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does! Knowing you, hedgehog, I know you are big on competition and there is no way you can turn this down."

Sonic thought about it for a second and then said, "Alright, Jet. You're on!" Sonic extended a hand out to Jet and he shook it.

"See you then, hedgehog. Bye, Abby." Jet then went away to join Storm and Wave at their own table.

Sonic turned back to face "Abby" and saw that she was turning a little red.

"I really hate that guy so much. I can't believe that I have to spend this long on a ship with his ugly face on it."

"Yeah, you have fun with that." Sonic then picked up his plate full of food and his cup and went away from the table. Amy simply shook her head at Sonic's apathy.

Sonic then went back downstairs to return to his room. When he did, he opened the door to see that Knuckles and Tails were awake. They were sitting on their beds and talking to Twig about how he was doing since the three of them have not seem him in a long time.

"Ah, there you are, Sonic," Twig said. "You took quite a long time up there."

"Yes, well, I was eating breakfast with Amy, and you can imagine how that could've went."

Twig smiled. "Believe me, I do. Hopefully she is a little more tame."

"You might want to give her another hour."

"I see. Then I guess I'll have to stay in here for a little while longer. I hope you guys don't mind?" The three of them shook their heads.

Sonic sat down at the bed and picked up the pamphlet that he found the night before. He opened it up and looked at the portion that showed what activities were going on that day. He went through it and saw that there was a ping-pong tournament at 12:30. He kind of figured that that was the thing that Jet was talking about.

"Hey, guys. There is a ping-pong tournament going on at 12:30. What do you say we do that?"

"You want to play ping-pong," Knuckles asked.

"Well, it's not like there's anything else that you guys would like. Between now and 12:30, there are dance lessons and trivia, which I'm pretty sure you guys don't like." Knuckles and Tails nodded and they then said that they both in for the ping-pong tournament since they didn't have anything better to do.

Twig then nudged Sonic and asked him if he could see the pamphlet. Sonic nodded and handed it over. He read it for a few seconds and said, "I think I'm going to pass. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be busy at 12:30."

"Doing what? Going to the dancing lessons?"

Twig blushed for a brief second. "Uh, no. Dance lessons are… stupid. Am I right?" Twig then smiled awkwardly. Sonic saw right through it and started giggling.

"It's okay, Twig. We all have our feminine side sometimes." The three of them then started to laugh and Twig turned away from them in embarrassment.

"You three should consider yourselves lucky that I can't leave this room because there is a rampant pink hedgehog out there." The Sonic Team then laughed even harder as Twig said that.

They all then just decided to chill in the bedroom and watch TV until 12:30 came around.


	4. Hedgehog-Hawk Games

Feel the Air

Chapter 4 – Hedgehog-Hawk Games

At 12:15, everyone left Sonic's room. Twig went over to the Chaotix's room, and he joined up with Vanilla and Cream to go to the dancing lesson. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails went to the 10th deck so that they could participate in the ping-pong tournament. When they got up there, they found out from a sign that pretty much the entire 10th deck serves as the entertainment portion of the ship. They knew exactly where they would go if any of them got bored.

The three of them then wandered around the deck until they noticed a couple of dozen people crowded around 8 ping-pong tables. Sonic looked around and found a sign that pointed out a sign-up sheet for the tournament. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles went over to it and signed themselves up.

Soon after they did, a grey echidna took the sign-up sheet and started reading off the people's names to himself. He then looked up from the piece of paper and said, "Everyone calm down and we'll get this tournament going."

The crowd of people soon silenced and the echidna continued speaking. "Alright, we have 32 contestants and 8 ping-pong tables. 16 players will go now, and we'll call the other 16 to go when people begin to finish. Am I clear?" Most of everybody nodded and waited for the echidna to speak again. "Alright, let me read off the first round."

Sonic and Knuckles were apart of the first 16 players while Tails had to wait his turn. Sonic was paired up with a bright green hedgehog, which he beat effortlessly. Knuckles was paired up with a grey cat, and he too didn't have any issue winning. As Sonic walked away from his first competition, he could see that Jet was facing off against Tails, while Storm and Wave were completely losing to their competitors. Jet, on the other hand, seemed to be dominating Tails.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Jet were among the 16 winners to move onto the next round. Again, Sonic and Jet were able to effortlessly defeat their competitors. Knuckles, surprisingly, lost a match with an extremely low score of 2. Knuckles walked away in a bit of shame as Sonic and Jet briefly celebrated their victories.

Sonic and Jet passed by each other as the 2nd round ended. "Looks like we're in the top 8, hedgehog."

"Yeah, let's see if you can manage the next one."

Jet smiled deviously. "Heh. Well, break a leg, Sonic."

Sonic smiled back. "With pleasure."

In the third round, Sonic was paired with a grey rabbit with patches of black all around his body. Sonic saw how well this bunny was playing earlier, but he didn't let that disturb him. The two of them stayed pretty even for the most of it, but Sonic ended up grabbing the last few points and winning the third round. Sonic looked around and saw that Jet left his competitor in the dust with a low score of 3.

"Well, maybe we'll end up facing off against each other, Sonic."

"I guess so." Sonic winked over at Jet, "See you over at the finish line, Jet."

"I'll be waiting," Jet replied with a slight laugh afterwards.

The grey echidna then announced the two pairings for the semi-finals. It was Sonic against a brown hedgehog named Sickle, and it was Jet against a purple cat named Odd. They each found that their competitors were very tough to beat. Sickle was clever with all of his hits, and Odd had a high amount of ambition that Jet couldn't even relatively match. It was close, but Sonic won 11 to 9 and Jet won 15 to 13.

This meant that Sonic and Jet would be able to face off against each other in the finals. The announcer then called for a ten-minute break where the finalists were given a couple of sandwiches and some water to drink. Sonic and Jet went over to a table and grabbed a sandwich and started quickly eating it.

"I had no idea that you were so good at ping-pong, Jet."

"I didn't think you were going to make it even close to the finals. You surprise me, hedgehog."

Sonic smiled and laughed to himself. He finished the last bite of his sandwich and brought it down with some water. "Are you ready to lose?"

"Maybe later. You can lose this time if you want." Jet cackled a little to himself at his little joke.

Sonic smiled. "No, I insist."

Jet smirked. "I'll think about it."

The two of them then went to the finals ping-pong table and got themselves prepared. The grey echidna signaled for them to start. They then played for about a half hour, and the round turned out to be grueling for both Sonic and Jet. Simply getting the first point took three minutes of rallying the ball. Both seemed to be very good, and they both seemed to have no intentions of giving up.

At the half hour mark, the score was 8 to 7 in favor of Sonic. In the next play, Jet began playing a little more aggressively and tried to spike the ball harder than normal. This tactic proved to fail though, because the ball went out-of-bounds from heavy spikes twice, giving Sonic two more points. He only needed one more point.

Jet, however, did not stop his aggressive tactic. He just tried to control it so that his spikes wouldn't go out-of-bounds. It was the game point, and Jet wouldn't allow himself to lose. Jet and Sonic then got themselves into a 4-minute rally, and they weren't giving up. To see if he could end the round more towards his favor, Jet did a heavy spike to end the long rally. The results did not end in his favor.

The ball heavily landed on Sonic's side and shot up towards Sonic's forehead, hitting him hard in the head. This caused Sonic to take a step back and topple over, hitting the back of his head against the ping-pong table behind him.

Jet went wide-eyed after Sonic toppled over and quickly went to his side. The grey echidna made it to him first. The echidna shook Sonic and tried to wake him up, but to no avail.

"It seems that Sonic has passed out. I'll take him over to the medical ward. I think it's safe to say that this tournament is over."

He then made his way through his crowds with Sonic passed out in his arms. Knuckles and Tails, who were glaring at Jet for being so aggressive, followed the echidna to the medical ward. Wave and Storm, however, were congratulating Jet for doing such a good job.

Jet turned to face the two of them. "Yeah, thanks, guys. I'm going to go to the buffet and get something to eat."

Wave nodded. "We'll join you. I'm starving."

"No," Jet somewhat yelled. Wave and Storm gave him uncomfortable stares for shouting at them. "I thought you wanted to check out that sushi bar, Wave. Isn't that open right now?"

Wave looked over at the clock and then suspiciously looked back over at Jet. "Alright, it looks like Storm and I are going to the sushi bar while you're going to the buffet by yourself."

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Jet then, without hesitation, walked away from the game room and went towards the elevators.

Some time later, Sonic began to open his eyes to find himself in the medical ward. He tried to raise his head, but he grunted at the pain of his injured head and lied back down. After being silent for a minute or two, he heard some shuffling from the left side of the room.

Sonic turned his head to see who was in the room with him, despite the pain that he was getting for turning his head. It turned out that Jet was standing at a window, overlooking the clouds.

"What are you doing here," Sonic asked.

Jet turned his head and was happy to see that Sonic was finally awake. "I kind of spiked a ball into your forehead."

"Oh, right. Where are Knuckles and Tails?"

"I ended up waiting with them for about an hour and a half. They then left to go play at the casino or something like that."

"That must've been awkward staying in a room with them like that."

"Nobody really talked. I told them that I was only in here because that announcer guy forced me to check on you so that they wouldn't think that I was up to something fishy. They really don't trust me that much."

"Give them a chance, I guess. I guess they don't see you in the same light as I do."

"What kind of light is that?"

"You stayed in here longer than Knuckles and Tails: my true friends. That has to mean something, Jet."

Jet took a seat next to Sonic's bed. "I guess it does mean something." Jet paused as he looked at Sonic as lied down in his bed. He blushed a somewhat noticeable pink, but turned his head so that Sonic couldn't see him. "The doctor told me you should be free in about a half hour if you're feeling good enough."

"That's good. You know me; I don't like being confined in a small place for a long time." Sonic then tried to sit up again, but the pain then rushed back to his head, forcing him to lie back down.

Jet stood up from his chair and tried to lend Sonic a hand. "Here, let me help you a little." Sonic then smiled and tried to lift himself up again, despite the pain. At the point when he was about to give up, he felt Jet's warm gloved hand touch his back, pushing him up. That was the kind of support that Sonic needed to fight the pain of his throbbing head and he was finally able to sit up.

Jet quickly took one of Sonic's pillows and put it behind Sonic's head so that it wouldn't hit the wall behind him.

Sonic smiled. "Thanks, Jet."

Jet smiled at the recognition.

The two of them then talked there for about a half an hour. They were talking about slightly more personal things, things that they never thought they would ever tell each other. That's when a doctor entered the room and interrupted them.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," the doctor said.

Jet smiled at the polite doctor. "Don't worry about it."

"Alright, good. Do you mind if you step out for a second while I speak to Sonic and hopefully we'll get him out of this bed?"

Jet nodded his head and exited the room, leaving the doctor and Sonic alone.

After ten minutes of waiting, Jet heard the door open behind him and the doctor came out with Sonic following behind him. The doctor went away, saying goodbye to Sonic, leaving Jet and Sonic alone again.

"What did he say," Jet asked.

"He almost tried to pull me out of tomorrow's race, but after ranting for about 5 minutes, he gave up and let me participate."

Jet smiled deviously and nodded. "That's good. Tomorrow's race would be really boring if I didn't actually have someone good to race with."

Sonic then heard his stomach begin to rumble. "I guess my stomach is telling me that I'm hungry."

Jet nodded. "Yeah, I'm hungry, too. I told Wave and Storm that I was going to the buffet after I hurt you, but I went over to your room instead."

Sonic raised an imaginary eye-brow over to Jet. "You ditched your friends to come check up on me?"

Jet nodded again. "Yeah, I did. I hit you really hard and put you in a hospital bed, and they were actually congratulating me."

Sonic laughed and smiled deviously. "Well, looks like I'll have to teach them a lesson on the tracks tomorrow."

"You already taught them a lesson earlier. They stunk so badly at ping-pong, and they didn't even get past the first round. I'm sure they're both fuming with jealousy because of how awesome we are."

Sonic laughed. "Alright, almighty ping-pong lord. Let's go get something to eat."

Jet smiled and they headed upstairs to eat… dinner. Sonic had been passed out for a little while.


	5. Race 1

Feel the Air

Chapter 5 – Race 1

Sonic and Jet exited the elevator into the 11th deck, witnessing the very large buffet that stood before them. Although the buffet was made up of generic food (and the disgusting "treats" that Tails and Knuckles ate the other night), it still made their mouths water.

Knowing the both of them, they went straight to the "Mobian" food and simply loaded their plates with chili dogs and nothing else. They went to a table, and Sonic began to eat his pain away. While they ate, they continued having their conservation from earlier as if they were best friends. They were having a good time, and they wished that they could have more fun like this more often.

The next morning, the three members of the Sonic team were awakened by announcement over a ship-wide intercom.

_Good morning, everyone. This is your captain speaking. We are currently minutes from Plital Heights, which is where preliminaries are going to be held. The weather is beautiful and sunny and is perfect for flying. We will be allowing you to depart the ship at 9 AM so that you may tour Plital Heights and admire the wonderful scenery and sites. Otherwise, all racers are expected to be at the track at 11 AM. Happy flying to you all and keep in mind, only half of you will make it to the next round, so try your best._

After the message finished and the intercom shut off, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles got up from their beds and tried to plan out their day.

"I think we should tour the town a little before heading to the race," Tails said. "I did a little bit of research of the places that we are going to race at, and I heard this place was really beautiful."

Sonic nodded. "That sounds good, Tails. Why don't we go eat some breakfast before getting ourselves ready?"

Tails agreed and said, "That sounds good."

Knuckles also nodded his head in agreement, but he then said, "How about we go to the dining room for breakfast this time. I heard there is some really nice food in there, and we don't even have to dress up in suits either."

Sonic smiled. "That sounds like a good idea. We can invite Team Babyl… I mean, Team Chaotix to join us."

"Alright," Knuckles said.

The three of them exited their room, grabbing their room keys on the way out so that they don't get locked out. Sonic went ahead to knock on Team Chaotix's door to invite them to breakfast, but Knuckles stayed a little behind to talk to Tails.

"Did he almost ask us to invite Team Babylon to have breakfast with us?"

Tails sighed. "I don't know, but it did seem like he was about to say Babylon instead of Chaotix."

"This is ridiculous. I knew Jet's visit to the medical ward yesterday was a little suspicious. He must have Sonic brainwashed or something."

Tails shook his head. "You're over thinking this, Knuckles. I highly doubt that Jet or any of the other Babylonians have the capability of brainwashing someone. Maybe Jet actually wants to be Sonic's friend."

"That's crazy."

"Yes, well maybe you should at least trust Sonic. Even though I don't like Jet or the rest of that team as much as you do, I'll trust them as long as Sonic does. Though, I do plan to kill any one of them the minute they slip up."

"Whatever. Let's just have breakfast and have a good race, alright?"

Tails nodded and the town of them entered Team Chaotix's room where it seemed as if they were all getting ready to leave. They went up to Sonic and he told them that Team Chaotix had agreed to join them for breakfast.

They all left the room together and went into the elevators, pushing the button that had a '5' on it. Once they reached the 5th deck, all they had to do was turn left and they were then in front of their dining room, 'The Racer Atrium'.

When they entered, they were simply asked to sit wherever they liked since there were no assigned seats in the morning. They sat down at a round table that had 7 chairs surrounding it and looked at the menus that were already placed on the table. They were all happy to see that they would not being eating pancakes for a change, including Sonic who was the pickiest of eaters there. They browsed the very appealing menu and considered what they were going to eat. Once they figured out what they wanted, they called for a waiter to come to their table and they order their food.

The waiter quickly wrote down their order and walked away to hand the order over to the cooks. The 7 of them were then free to talk amongst each other. Sonic was the first to speak.

"So Vanilla, how has the ship been for you so far."

Vanilla smiled. "I am having a very wonderful time so far Sonic, thanks for asking. Vector and I took Charmy and Cream over to one of the kid's rooms, and we went to this dining room to have a very romantic dinner."

Vector nodded. "I got one of them good-looking suits from the ship and looked sharp all of last night." He then paused and looked over to Vanilla. "After dinner, we went to one of the dancing places, and we had a really good time there, too."

Vanilla smiled. "It was a wonderful night."

"That's really nice to hear, you two." Sonic said with a moderate smile on his face. "Are you all ready for the race today?"

Vector nodded. "I was listening around the ship, and I heard that today's race isn't even a race. I remember hearing from a few people that it was time trial based, and that half of the best times would go to the next round."

"I remember hearing something about that also," Knuckles said. "Makes sense, too. There are too many teams here to race at the same time."

"Well," Sonic started. "We'll just have to try our hardest out on the track."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The seven of them were served their food, and they all filled their empty stomachs. They then left the dining hall and soon after, the captain announced that the ship had landed and that everyone was allowed to leave whenever they pleased. They all returned to their rooms, got their flying gear and any other necessity that they needed out in Plital Heights, and waited in line to exit the ship.

As soon as they left the ship, they instantly were amazed by how beautiful Plital Heights. Since it had just become Spring, the Winter snow had melted into all of the plants, making them all glisten in the rising sunlight. They admired it for a few moments until Sonic heard his name being called. Sonic turned around, and Tails and Knuckles turned around as well to see who was calling Sonic's name. The caller turned out to be Jet, who was gesturing for them to come over to them.

Sonic happily went over to him, dragging along Knuckles and Tails who were extremely reluctant to even get close to him. When they got there, Jet greeted them, and Wave and Storm just apathetically waved.

Jet reached out a hand for Sonic to grab and said, "We probably won't be able to see each other when we're off the track, so I'll say this now. May the best racer win."

Sonic took Jet's hand and shook it. "That's very admirable of you, Jet."

Jet then retracted his hand and offered it to Knuckles and Tails, who were shocked that Jet was actually being polite to them. They didn't want anything to do with Team Babylon, so they ignored the hand that was offered to them and simply walked off.

Sonic turned around to see where Knuckles and Tails were going and sighed. He walked off with them without even saying goodbye to Jet.

He caught up to the two of them and walked into town with them. He didn't even know what to say, because he knew exactly what was wrong with what he had just done. Just a few days ago, he told Tails and Knuckles that he hated Jet's guts, and now he is shaking his hand as if they had been friends forever.

"Do you guys even want to talk about what just happened," Sonic asked.

Tails and Knuckles stopped. Knuckles crossed his arms and said, "Not really, Sonic. I almost feel like you're going to drop out of our team to join their's or something."

"Why would I do something like that?"

"I don't know, Sonic. If you want to be friends with Jet or something, then fine! Just leave the whole racing part out of it, because for me, I'm here to win this thing."

Knuckles then walked off, leaving Tails and Sonic alone.

"What do you think about this, Tails? You've been kind of silent about the whole thing."

Tails turned to actually look Sonic in the eye. "Sonic, I don't really like Jet that much. But you're my best friend and you always seem to make good decisions, so I'm going to trust you on this one." Tails paused briefly. "I just don't want you making friends with somebody that might hurt you."

Before Sonic could even respond to that, Tails turned around and ran in the other direction to see if he could catch up with Knuckles to calm him down. Sonic then just kept at a slow pace with no intention of keeping up with either of them.

The three of them then toured the town for the next hour, almost ignoring the beauty of it since their heads were currently in 'Race Mode'. After the hour was up, they went over to the tracks which were only about a quarter of a mile away from the ship.

According to some of the research that Tails did, Plital Heights is known for both its floral and its amazing racing tracks. In total, there are five of them scattered around the town. Four of them are precisely identical to each other and there is absolutely no way to see the difference within them. These tracks will be used at the same time for the preliminaries, so that more racers can go at the same time rather than going one at a time.

Team Sonic was assigned to Track #2. The three arrived a few minutes before 11 o'clock and they were each given a patch that said "Team Sonic: 5". This meant that they are the 5th team to go on at that track.

They were allowed to sit on the sidelines to watch the first four teams take off on their preliminary runs. The first three had OK runs, Sonic thought, and the fourth team simply ran into every wall that came at them, making for a horrible run.

Sonic's team was called and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles grabbed their gear and went to the starting line.

"Alright, you three have a good and clean flight," the judge said. "Just one lap around the track and that is all you'll need for this race. Sound simple enough?" Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles nodded. "Alright then. When you're done, you can go over there to check how you rank with the other teams. Only the 32 teams with the best times will proceed to the next round. Got it?" The three of them nodded. "Step up to the starting line and you can go when I blow the whistle."

All three of them went to the white line that represented the starting line and got onto their Gear. A few seconds passed and the judge then blew his whistle, signaling for Team Sonic to go.

Overall, Sonic felt like they had a really good run. They didn't run into any walls, and all of the obstacles that were thrown at them, they easily maneuvered through them. The three of them went over to the ranking boards a few minutes after their run, and went to see how they placed.

They were surprised to see that they were in the second ranking spot, so far only being beaten by a team called 'Team Adventure' which was ran by their team leader, a dog named Jake. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails smiled at their achievement and looked back up at the boards to see how their friends ranked up.

Team Chaotix: Rank 21 overall

Team Rose: Rank 45 overall

Team Babylon: Rank 22 Overall


	6. Poor Sport

Feel the Air

Chapter 6 – Poor Sport

The representatives of all 64 teams went over to where Sonic was at in front of the scoring board. Sonic could hear the excitement from the 32 teams that got through to the next round while also hearing the despair from the 32 teams that didn't. He went around the crowd of people to see if he could find his friends to congratulate them (or comfort their failure).

He went walking around and then ran into Vector who was followed by Vanilla, Cream, and Charmy.

Sonic smiled as they stopped each other. "Congratulations Vector on getting to the next round."

Vector smiled and nodded. "Thanks, Sonic. I wish we could've gotten a better ranking than 22nd, but we tried our best."

Vanilla sighed. "I'm still getting used to the Gear, so I slowed the team down a little."

Vector patted Vanilla on the shoulder. "You did just fine, Vanilla. Let's go to town and find something to eat. We need to celebrate."

Vanilla smiled. "Thank you, Vector."

The four of them then went away, going in the direction of town. Sonic went looking around once again and ran into Twig.

"Twig, it's too bad that you didn't make it to the next round."

The brown hedgehog shook his head. "Don't worry about it too much, Sonic. Considering what happened, 45th place isn't all that bad."

"What happened," Sonic asked.

"It was an overall bad run. Amy had a very poor take-off and Big was far too heavy for his Gear. He weighed it down so much that he kept running into the ground and crashing. I wasn't really helping either, crashing into just about every wall that there is to crash into."

Sonic laughed a little to himself. "Well it's good to see that you're in high spirits after having a run like that."

"Yeah. It's actually good though, because after I didn't move onto the second round, someone offered me a job to be apart of the Racer staff as a Doctor. So I get to stay on the ship while all of the other losers are sent home."

"What about Amy and Big?"

"I requested for them to stay on the ship and they granted it. Amy would kill me if I stayed on the ship while ditching her."

"Yeah, she probably would. Well, I'm glad that you're well. I'm going to look for my friends and see if we can go into town and eat something."

"That sounds good. Bye, Sonic."

Twig went away and Sonic was then open to look for Knuckles and Tails. He went through the crowd of chattering people and finally noticed a red echidna above everyone. Sonic went past a few people and met up with Knuckles, who had Tails right next to him.

"Why don't we go find something to eat and celebrate our 2nd ranking?"

"That sounds good," Tails said. Knuckles nodded as well. The three of them then attempted to get out of the large crowd and went over to the town to find some food to eat.

"Hey, Tails," Sonic started. "Did you research something about the food here?"

"I did, actually. Apparently there's a really popular place in the center of the market called 'MacLaren's Pub'. It got some pretty good reviews for having amazing food, and it even got good reviews for its drinks. Non-alcoholic, of course."

"That sounds good to me," Sonic said. "What are the chances of them selling chili dogs there?"

"Hopefully none," Knuckles started, laughing a little to himself. "You've had more of those dreadful things in a few days than I have in my entire life."

"Just because you're a chili dog virgin doesn't mean you get to bash on them and ruin it for me."

"Oh shut up, Sonic."

The three of them began laughing. They then walked over to the market, and as Tails said, there was a restaurant called "McLaren's Pub" right in the center. It was packed with people from the race, too. The three of them entered and one of the hosts led them to an open table. They got themselves comfortable and opened up their menus. To Sonic's dismay, there weren't any chili dogs.

"Eh, I got 2nd ranking in the race. Maybe they'll make a chili dog specifically for me."

Knuckles nearly face-palmed. "Do you not like anything other than chili dogs, Sonic? Look around that menu of yours and maybe you'll find something interesting."

Sonic sighed, because he wasn't particularly fond of trying new things. He was always into the same things: running, being a show-off, and… chili dogs. That was just about his full capacity. Though, he did look around the menu with some form of interest and picked something that he hoped he would like. Tails and Knuckles smiled at his "boldness".

A waitress, who was a pink rabbit by the name of Anais, asked them for their food and drink order. Knuckles and Tails happily gave her their orders while Sonic reluctantly gave her his.

The three of them then sat in silence, not much to talk about. Although they were excited that they got 2nd place and even beat Team Babylon by a lot, they knew that they had a lot ahead of them. They simply just waited for their food to be brought to them in the awkward silence. Sonic even considered just running out of there and getting back on the ship just because he doesn't enjoy not having sound for a long period of time.

Luckily, though, the waitress returned with all of their plates of food. Knuckles and Tails licked their lips and began to dig into their food while Sonic slowly grabbed his fork and simply poked at his food, as if it were going to bite him. He took his knife and smoothly cut through the meat and took the sliced piece with his fork. He put it into his mouth and let his tongue taste the flavor of whatever the heck he ordered.

As the flavor began kicking in, Sonic's eye began to widen. He chewed it a little and swallowed it. It was a new flavor that he wasn't quite used to… and he liked it a lot. He quickly cut himself another slice of the meat and threw it into his mouth. That bite tasted just as good as the previous one did. He then began quickly eating away at his food, ignoring all forms of good manners.

Knuckles and Tails looked at Sonic's fast eating, so shocked that they were ignoring their own delicious food.

Knuckles looked over to Tails and said, "Tails, was there something on the menu called 'Chili in The Form of Meat'?"

"I don't think such a thing exists, Knuckles."

"Then that means—"

"Yeah. Sonic is actually enjoying something that is not in the form of a chili dog."

The two of them then blankly looked at each other and started laughing loudly. Sonic briefly lifted his head from his food to see his friends laugh. "Why are you guys laughing?"

"Don't worry, Sonic," Knuckles said. "Just keep eating."

Sonic shrugged and continued eating while Knuckles and Tails were finally calming down their laughter. Sonic was just about done with his food when he heard some commotion going on inside of the restaurant. He finished off the bite that was inside of his mouth and followed his ears to see who was yelling.

His ears brought him over to a green hawk, who was yelling at a waiter. Apparently the waiter got Jet's order wrong, and now he was facing the consequences, because Jet seemed pissed. The waiter apologized profusely and quickly ran to the back of the restaurant to fix Jet's order before he got himself fired.

Then Jet briefly exited the restaurant out of complete fury and rage. Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic looked at the door in completely shock at what just happened.

"Jet sure has a short temper," Knuckles stated. Tails nodded in agreement.

"Yeah… he sure does," Sonic said. He looked at his food and then back at the door and said, "I'm going to go to the bathroom really quick. I'll be right back."

Knuckles and Tails simply nodded as they went back to eating their food. Sonic got out of his seat and then instead of going to the bathroom, he snuck out of the door when Knuckles and Tails weren't looking. He looked around when he was outside, and he noticed that Jet was sitting on a bench with his arms crossed.

Sonic almost didn't want to approach Jet, because he looked pretty scary when he was mad with that waiter. But he felt like he could be able to talk to him since they were friends and all. Sonic walked over to the bench and sat next to him.

"Is there something wrong, Jet," Sonic smoothly asked.

Jet then quickly turned his head to face Sonic and scowled at him. "Don't sit next to me, hedgehog."

Sonic then quickly got up to his feet. "Alright, I'm probably making you uncomfortable by sitting next to you. What's wrong, Jet?"

Jet then got to his feet and aggressively approached Sonic. "You want to know what's wrong, Sonic. You're what's wrong." Sonic then became submissive and tried to back away from Jet, but Jet stayed on his trail. "You get second place and I get 22nd place, and now everyone is talking about you while they are completely ignoring me. Why don't you just quit and let the real pros be the winner?"

Sonic couldn't even form words as Jet yelled at him. This clearly wasn't the Jet that he befriended the other day. Sonic couldn't believe how wrong he was about Jet being a new person that was nice and actually a bit caring.

Jet continued to rant for another minute to Sonic and then turned his back to head back into the restaurant. Sonic, though, didn't want to follow him. He wasn't hungry enough to enter a restaurant that holds the same person that just yelled at him. Sonic was actually… saddened by Jet's rant.

Sonic simply went back to the ship, not even bothering to enter MacLaren's to tell Knuckles and Tails that he was leaving. He went into his room, turned on the TV, and just did nothing for a couple of hours.

A few hours later, the door to Sonic's room finally opened, revealing Tails and Knuckles.

"Sonic, have you been in here the whole time," Tails asked, a little bit of worry in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about leaving you guys at the restaurant. Something happened and I just wanted to leave."

"What happened?"

"I don't really want to talk about it, Tails."

"Oh, well… Knuckles and I are going to one of the arcades on the ship, and we were wondering if you would like to come with us."

Sonic shook his head. "Nah, I think I'm just going to stick around here an hour or two."

Tails then looked at Sonic with a slightly shocked looked on his face. He didn't think that Sonic would actually not want to go to the arcade with them. "Uh, alright… we'll come back later to check up on you, okay?"

"Alright, see ya."

Tails and Knuckles left the room.

A half hour later, though, there was another knock at the door. Sonic didn't know who could possibly be at his room, so he went over to his door and opened. To his surprise, Jet was on the other side of the door.

"Sonic, can I please come in," Jet said solemnly. The sweetness in Jet's voice urged Sonic to allow him in. Sonic nodded and gestured for Jet to enter. He did, and then sat down on Knuckles' bed.

"I wanted to apologize to you about how I yelled at you earlier. That wasn't cool of me as a friend."

"I'm just surprised that you were so mad over a stupid placing," Sonic said with a very slight amount of bitter anger in his voice.

"I know, I made it to the next round which is what should matter. But then I kept listening to all of the racers talking about how you and that 'Team Adventure' are going to win this thing, and I got really competitive."

Sonic sat down on the bed and then stared at Jet. "What I don't get is how you possibly got a ranking as low as 22nd."

"I don't want to talk about it. I just wasn't focused. I was thinking about… something."

"About what," Sonic asked.

"Please don't make me say it, Sonic. Believe it or not, it's too embarrassing."

"It can't be all that bad, Jet. We all have our embarrassing moments from time to time. I have them a lot too."

Jet looked up to face Sonic. "Trust me, Sonic. You don't want to hear this."

Sonic rolled his eyes. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog. I can listen to anything without gagging. So… were you thinking about Wave?"

"No…"

"Were you thinking about… Storm?"

"No…"

"Were you thinking about… Knuckles?"

"Ew, no…"

"Were you thinking about… me?"

"Uh…"

Sonic quickly shot his eyes over to Jet. "Jet, were you thinking about me?"

"Maybe?"

"What could you have possible been thinking about?"

"Well…" Jet looked over at Sonic and got lost in his beautiful green eyes. He knew that if he hid his 'secret' from Sonic forever, that he would burst.

Jet grabbed the back of Sonic's next and, despite Sonic's shocked expression, kissed him.

Cliffhanger. =3


	7. Hide & Seek

Feel the Air

Chapter 7 – Hide & Seek

Sonic almost felt like he was dreaming when reality kicked in that Jet was kissing him. He didn't think that Sonic would ever be kissing someone that was his opponent, let alone Jet. Though, he didn't exact reject the kiss, though. Even though it wasn't inviting, because it was a beak against lips, he simply just let Jet transfer his "love" to him.

After about 15 seconds of them staying like that, Sonic then quickly separated the kiss and took a few steps away from Jet. "I'm really confused, Jet."

Jet blinked before barely getting out the words to say, "I… I… don't really know what to say, Sonic. I'm really sorry; I probably shouldn't have done that. I'm just going to let myself, and I'll never, ever speak to you again. I promise."

Sonic was going to stop him and ask him to talk about his feelings, but he just couldn't bring the words together. He simply just let Jet run out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.

Sonic just stared at the door, as if it had been embedded in gold the minute Jet ran out of it. Now, all he wanted to do was lay in his bed for the entire trip, not even coming out for the races. Though, that changed when after a few minutes, Tails and Knuckles returned from whatever they were doing and saw Sonic lazily lying in his bed doing absolutely nothing.

"Sonic, are you really going to lie like this for the entire day, or are you going to actually get out and do something," Knuckles asked.

"I don't know, I guess I just don't feel like getting out of bed today."

Tails then sat down next to Sonic's head and said, "Sonic, is there something wrong? You seemed so happy earlier, and now you're moping in your bed."

Sonic sat up from his bed and got next to Tails. "I guess I don't really want to talk about it."

Tails pat Sonic on the shoulder. "If you don't want to say anything, then I guess I won't press you on it. But, Knuckles and I are going to rent some suits and have dinner with Team Chaotix and Team Rose in the dining room. Everyone would be kind of disappointed if you didn't come, especially me."

Sonic looked over to Tails and smiled, "I guess I should be thankful for having such good friends like you guys. Alright, I'll go."

Tails smiled. "Alright!"

The two of them then stood up and left the room with Knuckles. They each took the elevator to the 7th deck, which mainly consisted of the "Racer's Market", but it also had a 'Gallery of Fine Arts' and a library.

The three of them then went down a large hallway where there were several shops scattered around. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles looked to their right and left to see the array of shops ranging from a simple candy store to a store with some of the most popular Extreme Gear accessories around the universe.

They continued to look inside the windows of each of the stores until they made it close to the end where a shop known as "Formal Rentals" stood. The three of them turned and went inside and witnessed the amount of suits and dresses that were scattered across the room. With good reason, the shop was buzzing with customers who wanted to look their best for their dinner reservations. Especially since this is the dinner after the first race where people are going to be congratulating each other's success and boasting about their high rankings.

The three of them went into the men's section of the store and immediately dispersed to find a suit that they thought they looked good in. They went through the assortment of hangars that held multiple colors of suits and tuxedos that would fit just about anyone's styles and tastes. After only a few minutes of looking, the three of them were already waiting in front of the 'Changing Room' to try on their tuxedos.

The first one out of there was Knuckles, who was going with a simple black tuxedo. Sonic and Tails both agreed that the black tuxedo matched nicely with his red fur. Next one to come out of the changing room was Tails, who was sporting a good-looking yellow tuxedo that blended nicely to his fur. Finally, Sonic came out of the looking much better in his tuxedo. Like Knuckles, Sonic was wearing the standard black tuxedo, but he was also wearing a flourishing green corsage that matched nicely to his eye color. It completed the look entirely.

"You look really nice, Sonic," Tails exclaimed.

"Thanks, Tails. You don't look half bad yourself." Tails smiled. Sonic then looked at the two of them simultaneously and said, "Let's rent these and head over to the dining hall. I'm sure everybody is already there waiting for us." Tails and Knuckles nodded and they each rented their tuxedos.

Afterwards, they went to Deck 5 and waited to request a table. Though, when they got up there, the host told them that there was a group that was already expecting them. They nodded and followed the host over to a large table where Team Chaotix and Team Rose had already arrived. Though, it seemed that someone was missing.

"Hey, where's Big," Sonic asked as he took his seat next to Twig.

Twig turned to face Sonic and said, "Big requested to be taken off of the ship and returned to his home. I guess he was home-sick and wanted to see Froggie again."

Sonic laughed to himself and said, "Who knew that a cat would get along so well with a frog."

Knuckles chuckled and replied, "Well, anything seems to be possible when it comes to Big."

Everyone at the table then began to laugh. Amy then batted her eyes towards Sonic and happily said, "Congratulations for getting second place, Sonic. I knew you would do super well in the race."

"Thanks, Amy, but I couldn't do it without Tails and Knuckles." Knuckles pat Sonic on the shoulder and Tails gave him a nice smile.

All of them then began to talk amongst themselves, discussing things like the race and how beautiful Plital Heights was. They did that for about ten minutes until they were interrupted by someone who stepped into the center of the dining room with a microphone.

The speaker, a black echidna, then said, "Hello, all, and welcome to the Racer Atrium. I am the head chef of this dining room, and I will be the first to tell you that you all are going to have some wonderful nights in here." That statement earned a few quiet cheers from the crowd. "First off, congratulations to all of you for making it past preliminaries and making it to the next round. I specifically want to congratulate Team Sonic, Team Adventure, and Team Rocket for being our top three racers. If you're in here, then you should stand up and we'll give you a round of applause."

Sonic looked to his left to see that Tails and Knuckles were beginning to stand up. Sonic did the same and accepted the clapping and cheering from everyone in the room. After the applause died down, the three of them sat back down and waited for the black echidna to finish his speech.

"Alright. We have an assortment of items on our menu tonight, and I'll tell you that they are all equally delicious. I know that, because I'm the one who is going to be making them." A few people then began to laugh. "So, look at the menu for a few moments and have a wonderful night everyone."

The black echidna then switched the microphone off, and he was applauded as he returned to the kitchen. After a minute, the applause died down and it was replaced with the normal chatting.

After a half hour, the group already ordered their food and has gotten it in seemingly record time. Also, they all seemed to agree that the food that they each got was very well-made. After eating a large steak, Sonic slouched into his chair while covering his belly with his hand, signaling that he was full.

While everyone finished what they were eating, Sonic's eyes simply wandered to each of the tables and lazily gazed at what everyone was eating. Sonic then turned his attention over to the door that led to a room with the elevators. Sonic wasn't going to think much of it, but then someone passed by the dining room that immediately caught his eye.

"Hey, if you guys don't mind, I'm going to head to the bathroom." Everyone nodded their head and then continued to finish their food. Sonic got up from his chair and ran for the door to catch up with "the person".

Right when he exited the room, he looked to his left to see a green-feathered hawk walking away to who knows where. Sonic followed closely behind him and was curious as to where the heck he was going. The answer revealed itself when Jet sat in a little bench that faced a window.

Jet was overlooking the stars as they flew by.

Sonic then considered it for a second, but finally came to the conclusion that he had to confront Jet whether he wanted to or not. He walked over to the little bench and sat down next to Jet, shocking Jet and causing him to cower a little.

"What are you doing over here," Jet timidly asked.

"I'm looking for you, Jet. You passed by my dining room, and I just couldn't let you walk away. Not after what happened earlier."

"I'm… really sorry. You probably don't even want to be friends with me anymore."

"That's not true. If anything, I think what you did brought us a little closer."

"Why? I kissed you without even telling you that I had any form of affection for you."

"It might have been a little… sudden, but that isn't always a bad thing."

"Well… what did you think of it then?"

This question caused Sonic to think harder than he has every thought before. Sonic wasn't going to kid himself by saying that he didn't like the kiss at all. He didn't know what to do or what to say, because everything was happening so fast.

That's when he thought of a way to figure out if he like Jet or not.

"I… don't know. I guess I didn't know what to think the first time." Sonic sighed before saying, "Do you think you can… kiss me again?"

Jet blinked, but he didn't need to be told twice. Jet connected his beak to Sonic's soft lips, bringing the two of them into a glorious kiss. The awkward feeling of beak-to-lips was still there for Sonic, but he could also feel something a lot more this time around. Even though it wasn't much different physically, it was much more mentally pleasing. This was the sign that Sonic was looking for that told him that he was possibly falling for Jet.

He separated the kiss and randomly asked, "Why do you even like me?"

Jet smiled and was quick to reply, "Because you're the only one who is able to keep up with me everyday. I don't think I've ever known a person like you."

Sonic smiled as well and said, "I think I feel the same thing about you. You've changed so much for the better since I last saw you, and now… I want to be with you." The two of them then shared another kiss to end the night that Jet has always dreamed of.

After about a minute, they finally separated. Jet then said, "I guess you should probably go back to your friends. They're probably wondering where you are."

"I probably should." Sonic paused and looked at Jet. He then continued by saying, "Why don't you come eat with me and my friends?"

"But I thought they didn't like me."

"Well, I like you, and they're just going to have to deal with that."

Jet smiled brightly, because he never had anyone ever reject their closest friends just for him to be happy. Sonic got up from the bench and reached out a hand for Jet to grab it. Jet grabbed it and got up from the bench. They then each walked into the dining room together to return to Sonic's group.

Sonic was hoping for the best, while Jet was expecting the worst.


	8. Secrets

Feel the Air

Chapter 8 – Secrets

Sonic was forcing Jet into the dining room, even though Jet was constantly saying that it was a bad idea for him to join the group. After a minute of fighting back, Jet just simply gave up and didn't even want to fight it anymore. The two of them walked over to the table calmly.

When they got there, Sonic didn't even get to say anything before Knuckles got to throw in a comment of his own.

"Sonic, when you go to the bathroom, you're supposed to flush your crap down the toilet rather than take it with you to the dinner table." Knuckles then started laughing to himself even though Tails was angrily hitting him for making such an offensive comment to Jet.

Sonic was shocked that Knuckles would say such a comment at a dining hall before Jet even had the chance to explain himself. Sonic looked to his right to notice that Jet was already beginning to walk away.

Before Sonic could follow him, he wanted to give Knuckles a piece of his mind. "What is wrong with you, Knuckles? I don't even get to speak or even sit down before you let your big mouth off of its leash. You're so stupid and now you hurt my friend's feelings. I can't believe I'm on the same team as you."

Sonic then stormed off, leaving Knuckles with a completely shocked expression. His mind thought he was making a joke, but his soul regretted ever even opening his mouth. "He'll be back. He just needs a bit of time to cool down."

Tails glared at Knuckles. "Yeah, Knuckles, you're going to apologize to Sonic. I'm not really going to speak to you until you and Sonic make up." Everyone else at the table nodded in agreement, especially Amy who was angrily fuming on the inside.

"Please, don't be like that, Tails. It was just a little joke." There was no response.

Vanilla then chimed in and said, "Joke or not, it was still very hurtful to Sonic's friend, and it is clearly making them both upset. You should go apologize."

Knuckles thought about it for a second, but he knew that Vanilla always has the ability to tell people to do the right thing. "Yeah, I guess you're right." Knuckles got up from the table and went towards the exit.

Meanwhile, Sonic exited the dining room and ran after Jet so he could comfort him. Outside of the dining room, Sonic found Jet just sitting on the stairs, crying. Sonic never even knew that Jet had the ability to cry, especially since for the longest time Sonic knew the arrogant side of Jet. That is why it was unbearable for Sonic to see him in such a dark place.

Sonic went over to Jet and sat down next to Jet, rubbing his back to show that he cared. "Don't listen to Knuckles, Jet. He's just being an arrogant knuckle-head like he normally is."

Jet tried to fight back the tears, but they just kept flowing down his cheeks. "This is so embarrassing, Sonic. I haven't cried like this since I was a child. I'm better than this, why am I crying so much?"

Sonic put his arm around Jet's back and gently brought him closer. "Maybe it's because you care so much for me. You're letting Knuckles, someone you have been able to diss and make fun of for a long time, bring you down simply because he's my friend and his opinion now matters to you."

"He's just one person, though. I'm sure that there are a lot more people that feel the same way that he does."

"Don't think about them. Think about us."

Jet then looked up to look into Sonic's green eyes. His tears began to stop coming. "Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"I know this is really soon, and I don't know if you really want to know this, but I think I'm truly in love with you."

Sonic laughed briefly to himself. "I know." Sonic then brought Jet in for a kiss. This time, Sonic knew for sure what he wanted in his life. He wanted Jet to be there in his life to make him happy, but he also wanted to be in Jet's life so he could comfort him and to constantly remind him that he is loved.

That moment was perfect for the two of them, but the moment was less than perfect for a certain bystander than watched as his friend and rival kissed each other. Knuckles, the certain bystander, didn't know if he should be appalled or not. He knew that Sonic and Jet were friends, but he didn't quite realize that the two of them were that close.

Knuckles really wanted to go over there and break the two of them up, but if he did that, Sonic would never want to talk to him again. To avoid any more awkwardness, Knuckles simply took a few steps back and then re-entered the dining room. He had no intentions of telling anyone what he had just seen. At least, not yet.

Sonic and Jet then separated from the kiss and then looked at each other, thinking of things that they could do next with each other. "Why don't we go up to my room and we'll play a game or something? It'll get our mind off of things."

"Yeah, we should probably get off of these stairs before someone finds us." The two of them laughed with each other as they got up from the stairs and went over to the elevators.

After taking a short ride on the elevator, Sonic and Jet went over to Sonic's room and entered. Sonic sat down on his bed and Jet sat down next to him.

Sonic then asked, "So, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I was kind of hoping that you had a plan."

"Well, I don't really know what you like, so you have to give me some hints here, Jet."

Jet paused to think about how he could respond to Sonic. That's when he came to some realization. "Sonic, we really don't know each other that well. I mean, we both know that we like to be fast and we both really like chili dogs, but that's about it."

"I guess you're right. Maybe we can talk about each other for a little bit. You know, to get to know each other."

"Where do you want to start then?"

"I guess I start with a really important question first. You told me that you've been liking me for a little while, but what does 'a little while' mean?"

"Oh, I didn't think you'd actually ask that, but I guess I should probably tell you." Jet sighed. "Do you remember when we saved the Babylon Garden from that black hole, and we brought it into orbit?"

"Yeah, I remember it. That was quite the adventure you and I had."

"Well, after that, I finally realized that you and I work really well as a team together. You're such a good leader and you were so fast when you were trying to save the Garden, and I guess I just remembered that."

"Then why did you seem so arrogant whenever you asked me to race. You also seemed like you were on top of the world when you greeted us on the ship a few days ago."

Jet laughed a little to himself. "I do those things, because I'm always trying to grab people's attention. When I was young, I always wanted to be the star child in front of everyone, so I did cool tricks with my Extreme Gear. Then, I met Wave and Storm. Whenever Wave made me a new board, I'd do really cool tricks and I would tell her how amazing her boards were. I thought I liked her, but I guess I really only liked her because she was an engineer and she made cool stuff for me."

Sonic laughed to himself for a little bit. "Then what happened?"

"Then I guess nothing much happened for a little while. I had normal life where I just flew as fast as I possibly could, and beat anyone that would approach me for a race. But then Wave and Storm then looked up to me as a leader and started asking me to do illegal things for them."

"Like when I first met you when the cops were chasing you?"

"Yeah, that was Wave's idea. I guess that's when my bad side took over, and I pretty much did things by instinct. So I became the bad guy."

Sonic frowned for a second. "What about the races?"

"I noticed your speed and good use of the Extreme Gear, but I didn't think I would come to like you like I do now. It just kind of grew on me. It wasn't until the last time where we teamed up that I finally understood how much I… loved you."

Sonic continued to frown for a bit, but then he smiled. "I guess I never knew what it was truly like to be loved. That's probably why I didn't respond when you kissed me. I actually really wanted to stop you before you stormed out of my room."

"Really? I thought you were really freaked and never wanted to talk to me ever again. I didn't know you actually liked it."

"Yeah, it was my first legitimate kiss, and I guess while this trip was going on, I was growing on you too."

"Wait? That was your first kiss? I thought you and that Amy girl used to date or something."

"In her head, we were boyfriend and girlfriend since she was born, but I didn't really want anything to do with her. She's pretty much half my age, and you know full well that she's a pest."

"I thought that being someone with your status in Mobius would make you crowded with all of the girls."

"Those are just fan-girls. They just love me for my speed and my heroism. They don't love me at all for the purpose of actually loving me."

"Maybe that's why I was attracted to you so much. While a lot of people from my world loved me for being the fastest, they never truly loved me because of who I truly am. You were different. I was such a jerk to you, and all you did was either beat me at my own game or just walk away. I think you're the only one I know that actually just walked away."

"You must've taken a pretty big chance when you wanted me to be your friend a few days ago. You thought I completely hated you."

"I didn't think you would actually be forgiving. But, I don't think any of your other friends are really warming up to me."

"Hey, let me tell you a few secrets. If you follow what I say, then they'll make you their friend for sure."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Cream and Vanilla are forgiving bunnies, and all you have to do is be nice to them, and they'll return the same amount of compassion to you. If you make Vanilla happy, then you'll make Vector happy, because he has a thing for Vanilla. Charmy will just follow what the group does."

"Oh, that's pretty easy then."

"There's nothing you can really do about Knuckles. He's just going to have to warm up to you, whether he wants to or not. Tails is pretty forgiving, but if you want to push him in the right direction, then you can talk to him about your Extreme Gear. Either that, or ask Wave to talk to Tails about it."

"I don't about that, Sonic. Wave and Tails don't exactly get along."

"I don't get that, though. They're both such tech-geeks, and you would think that they would be hanging out with each other a lot and making robots or something."

"I don't know. Wave just doesn't really like people that much." Jet paused and then said, "Don't you have a couple of other friends on this ship that I should know about?"

"Yeah, all I can think of right now is Amy and Twig. Twig is pretty easy, because guess what, he actually is openly attracted to other guys also. I'm sure if we told him about us, he'll be more than accepting and supportive."

"I didn't really think about telling people about our relationship, but if you trust Twig, then I guess I can't really say much about it."

"Alright, and then there's Amy. She's going to be a little tough, because if you remember, she is still madly in love with me."

"Still?"

"Yeah still. She is just going to need some time to recover."

"Alright, I guess I can take that. You're probably going to have to wait some time for Wave to recover also."

"Yeah, I kind of figured."

"So is that everyone?"

"Yeah, it is. Now, maybe you don't have to be all embarrassed when you sit on stairs crying over something that a stupid echidna says."

Jet laughed. "I sure hope not."

Jet then leaned in and the two of them kissed the night away.


	9. Crushed Swallow

Feel the Air

Chapter 9 – Crushed Swallow

After finishing their kiss, the two separated and simply stared at each other for a prolong amount of time. After a couple of minutes of doing so, they finally decided to get up from Sonic's bed.

"So… what should we do now," Sonic asked.

"Your friends are probably wondering where you are now, and Storm and Wave are probably mad at me for ditching them at dinner. We should get some sleep. Tomorrow… maybe we can talk about us."

"I'd like that, Jet. I'd like that a lot."

Sonic walked with Jet out of them room, and the two of them went down the hall to Jet's room. Jet said goodbye and was about to turn to go into his room, but Sonic brought him back for a quick goodnight kiss. Jet smiled brightly before going into his room, leaving Sonic alone in the hallway.

After what Sonic had been through in the past couple of hours, he didn't want to already say goodbye to Jet. But it was just for the night, so he knew that he would be fine until tomorrow. Sonic turned to go back to his room when he saw Knuckles and Tails going down the hall to meet up with him.

While walking, Tails said, "Sonic, we were looking everywhere for you."

"Where were you looking? Other than right now, I was in our room the entire time."

Knuckles lightly elbowed Tails in the arm. "I told you that Sonic would be in the room."

"Yes, but I didn't want to waste our time going to our room if Sonic was probably not going to be there."

"You wasted more time by going to unnecessary parts of the ship, Tails!"

Tails sighed. "Fine, but that's not important now. Knuckles, you still have to apologize to Sonic and Jet for saying what you did at dinner."

Knuckles sighed as well and turned his head to face Sonic. "Yeah, I guess I do owe you and Jet an apology. I've never seen Jet quite so upset, so I guess I must have said something pretty bad to make him in such a bad state. Where is he anyways?"

"We just said goodbye for the night. You can apologize to him later. I had to make him feel better since you called him a piece of crap in front of the entire table."

Knuckles tried to hold back a laugh, because he knew that that would make everything worse. "Yeah, yeah. I know and I'm sorry. I guess I was trying to make a joke and it came out the wrong way."

Sonic nodded his head. "Thanks. You really should control that mouth of yours. If it is as spontaneous as your actions are, then we're going to be in big trouble one day."

"Fine. Can we stop with the insults and get some shut-eye? We have a free day tomorrow before going to the next race and I would like to sleep in."

Sonic agreed. "Yeah, let's go."

Knuckles got ahead of the two of them and led them to their room. When he entered the room with Sonic, he just couldn't get the image of Sonic kissing Jet out of his mind. To him, it just seemed too impossible for people like Sonic and Jet to… fall in love. They've shown that they have hated each other every moment that they were even in the same mile of each other.

Though, Knuckles was also factoring in the fact that Sonic and Jet just spontaneously became friends for a reason that he isn't quite aware of.

The next morning, Sonic woke up at around 5 in the morning. He couldn't sleep, and it was obviously because he wanted to see Jet again. Last night was far too short for him to be away from Jet for 6 hours. Sonic got up from his bed without waking up Tails and Knuckles, threw on his shoes and gloves, and left the room.

Sonic didn't even know why he was waking up so early, because he knew that Jet wouldn't be up for another couple of hours. But he did think that walking around the ship for a little bit will pass the time and get his mind off of him. Sonic first went to get some breakfast at the buffet, because he was starving.

After taking an elevator ride, Sonic entered the buffet, grabbed himself a plate, and began filling it with something more than just pancakes. Because of what he ate last night, he was influenced to try new things while he was on the ship. So he threw on some muffins, eggs, and hash browns to accompany his pancakes.

After doing all of that, Sonic looked around for a nice place to sit, but his eyes fell on something better. Sonic followed his eyes to see Wave just sitting at a table all by herself, eating slowly and looking out into the dark horizon through the window that she was next to. Sonic kind of figured that this would be his chance to get along with her, because he knew that she clearly didn't like him that much.

Sonic approached her and asked, "Do you mind if I sit here?"

Wave turned her head hoping to find an admirer. She was highly disappointed to see Sonic standing there. "Yes, I do mind. Why don't you go find Jet and you guys can leave me alone."

"Come on, Wave. What have I done to make you so angry like this? Jet asks me to be his friend one day, and you go from being a show-off to being cruel and untalkable."

Wave grunted. "I don't like the fact that Jet spends more time with you than he spends time with me and Storm. He should be with his team and not wasting his time talking with the enemy. I'm not sorry to say this. You're an enemy." Wave grabbed her tray full of food and went to another table that was on the other side of the buffet, hoping that Sonic wouldn't follow her.

"Well that could've gone better," Sonic said to himself sarcastically. Sonic was too tired to care about Wave's mood, so he just ignored it and sat down at the table that Wave just gave up.

For the next half hour, Sonic ate his food slowly, something that he wasn't entirely accustom to doing. He just wait for time to pass until people wake up and make this ship active again. It'll give Sonic more energy if the ship had more energy.

Sonic finished his food and went to take his plate to the trash can, when he saw something familiarly green in the corner of his eye. After throwing the plate away, Sonic turned around to see that Wave was unfortunately scolding Jet for who knows what. Sonic had a pretty good idea of what they were "discussing", though.

In the midst of Wave's yelling, she noticed that Sonic was staring at the two of them. She wasn't happy about it, so she finished whatever she was saying and stormed off. Jet was a little shocked that someone could have so much words in them to completely throw someone off. Though, Jet saw Sonic too and was happy to join him.

"What happened there," Sonic asked.

"Wave is pretty mad at me because I spend more time with you than I spend time with them. Funny thing is, even if you didn't exist, I probably wouldn't spend a whole lot of time with them anyways. Wave can be such a hot-head and Storm can be so ignorant sometimes. If they weren't such good racers, I probably wouldn't be on the same team that they are."

"Don't worry about them. They'll come through, one day. They will have to." Sonic gave Jet a brief kiss, causing him to blush quite a bit. "But I think I know why Wave is so upset that you don't spend a lot of time with her?"

"What?"

"I think she has a crush on you."

Jet frowned and kind of cowered from the conversation. "I don't think she has a crush on me. I know she has a crush on me. She has made it obvious that she has had some kind of love for me since we first formed this team. Thing is, I've been pretty much ignoring her 'signs', because I never liked her more than the engineer of our team. She's much older than I am, and something tells me that if we got into a relationship, we would probably be fighting more like what we did just now. Or she would just yell at me a lot."

Sonic laughed a little to himself, because that definitely sounds like something that Wave would do. Though, he also laughed because that sounds like something a lot of women would do. Thankfully for Sonic, though, Jet isn't a woman. Just an arrogant hawk.

"Yeah, I guess I know how you feel. I'm much older than Amy, and it is clear that she has not hidden her feelings about me at all. I could keep running from her forever, or I could tell her the truth. I think that you need to give Wave the same respect and tell her than she isn't the one for you."

"Yeah, I'm just afraid that she'll just leave the team if I tell her that I don't like her. I wouldn't be surprised if the main reason that she's still on the team is because she thinks that she has a shot with me, even though I've shown to her that she doesn't."

"I think there's more to it than that, Jet. She's in the team because she knows that you and Storm are the fastest people around, and that she would never find a team like Team Babylon."

Jet smiled. "I guess you're right."

"You're probably hungry now. I'll go find a table and you can get your food."

"Alright."

Jet goes to get his food and joins Sonic at a table. "So what should we do today, Sonic?"

"I don't know. I didn't read the schedule for today, so I don't know what's happening today."

Jet took a bite out of his food. While chewing he said, "Maybe we can hang out with Storm in the arcade later today. It's a cool arcade and you and Storm can get to know each other."

"I didn't think that you would be the one to want to hang out with Storm. I thought you didn't really like spending a whole lot of time with him."

"When Storm is in the zone, like when he's in an arcade, he's a completely different person. He's definitely more competitive, which makes him more fun to be around." Jet paused for a second so that he could swallow his food. "Besides, I've been trying to be his high score on High Racer for the past few days, but he set the best time way too high. I was hoping you could help me out with that."

"Oh come on Jet. What happened to being the fastest thing alive? Can't even beat Storm in a video game?"

Jet laughed. "Hey, are you going to help me or what?"

"Of course, any day that I beat Jet is a good day for me."

Jet smiled deviously. "Oh, is that so?" Jet gave Sonic a clean kiss on the lips and said, "What about now tough guy? Feeling as strong?"

Sonic blushed and knew that he was beat. "Eh, today is still a good day." Jet laughed again and kissed Sonic on the lips again, this time for a longer time than the first time. Since the room was fairly empty, they had a nice chance to get romantic without getting caught by anybody. Though, there are some people that like to wake up early to get their breakfast in the buffet. Possibly, those people just so happen to be getting their food while Sonic and Jet were kissing.

The person that happened to fit that description was Tails.


	10. Discomfort

Feel the Air

Chapter 10 – Discomfort

Tails felt his stomach rumbling early in the morning so he decided to wake up early to get some food. He saw that Sonic was already up, so he thought that he would meet him for breakfast and they would eat with each other. After exiting his room and taking the elevator to the breakfast buffet, Tails grabbed himself a plate and began loading it with food. After doing so, he turned to his right to see if he could find Sonic sitting somewhere. What he found instead was Sonic kissing Jet at the table that the two of them were sitting at.

Tails went the other way so that Sonic and Jet wouldn't catch him watching them. He really didn't know what to think with the two of them kissing like that. He knew for sure that something like that didn't happen on accident, and Tails saw that they were both enjoying it.

Tails was a little more chill about the kissing than Knuckles was, but he just couldn't get his mind wrapped around the idea of Sonic and Jet being in a relationship. That's when he thought back to when Jet started being nice to Sonic and the two of them became close friends. Tails began connecting some dots and realized that Jet might have had more feelings for Sonic than just having him as a simple friend. Tails almost wanted to get up from the table to confront the two of them, but he knew that that would just make things awkward. He then made the consideration to just talk to Sonic alone later.

Though, the chance to get Sonic alone immediately arrived when Sonic began walking over to Tails' table without Jet at his side.

"Hey Tails. You're up pretty early."

Tails tried to force a smile. "Yeah, my stomach woke me up so I thought I would go get some food before I start my day. Why don't you sit down?"

"Alright." Sonic sat down at the table in the chair across from Tails. He simply looked out of the window that was next to him while Tails continued to eat his food.

While he ate, Tails constantly thought about telling Sonic about what he saw, but every time he told himself to do it, he cowered. 'Why don't you just tell him,' Tails asked himself. 'All you have to tell him is that it's no big deal and he'll be fine with it.'

Tails swallowed his food and then said, "Hey Sonic, I need to tell you something pretty important."

"What is it, buddy," Sonic asked as he turned away from the window to face Tails.

"You know how you've been hanging around Jet a lot and that you two have become pretty good friends?"

"Yeah, what about that?"

"Well, when I came up here to get my food, I kind of saw you guys… doing something."

Sonic thought about what Tails said for a second and then he caught on to what was going on. Sonic sighed, "You probably think it is really weird, don't you Tails?"

"I don't know really what to think Sonic. Just a couple of weeks ago, you were telling me how much you didn't like Jet and how you wanted to destroy him in the competition. Then you get on here, and you guys are friends, and then now I see this. What happened?"

Sonic sighed again. "You're my best friend, and I guess I can trust you with anything I tell you, right?"

Tails smiled and eagerly nodded his head.

"Then I guess it's only fair that I told you. Do you remember last night when I was bringing Jet over to the dinner table, and Knuckles made fun of Jet to the point of tears?" Tails nodded. "Well, right before that, I went over to talk to Jet. You see, earlier that day, he had kissed me in our room out of nowhere. So I went over to him to tell him that it was okay that he had love for me. Then we got to talking, and I realized… I guess I probably had love for him too."

"That's really nice, Sonic. I guess it's true that enemies can become friends."

"Yeah, but ever since, we've been nervous about telling everyone, especially Jet. I actually just got done comforting him, because apparently Wave really has a thing for him."

"And Amy has a thing for you, Sonic."

"I know, and we don't know how to get away from Wave and Amy without somebody getting really mad and hitting me with a Piko Piko Hammer with such power and force that it knocks the air out of me and then puts the air back in me."

Tails chuckled. "That was pretty descriptive, but I guess that is for good reason. Amy can be a little… emotional, and that hammer seems to be the only way that she releases her anger."

"Yeah, and she's going to be on this ship with us the entire time, so if I tell her now, she'll never let it go."

"I guess that's true, but don't you think she deserves the truth? She's been chasing after you for years, and it would break her heart if she found out about your relationship if it didn't come from you."

"She'll still be heart-broken if I told her."

"Even so, she still deserves to hear it from you. You're going to have to do it eventually. It's a small ship, and she will find out one way or another."

Sonic laughed a little bit to himself. "Why do you have to be so smart, Tails? I keep telling you how awful it would be to tell Amy about me and Jet, but you keep coming up with ways to tell me why I should tell her."

Tails smiled and laughed along with Sonic. "It's just one of my specialties. Good moral practices are what I'm known for."

"Oh and inventing stuff is not one of your specialties AT ALL."

"Well, that too."

The two of them then continued to laugh as the trouble with Sonic and Jet's relationship went away. Sonic was relieved to know that Tails was okay with the two of them being in a relationship. But he knew for a fact that Tails was probably going to be one of the most understanding people among his friends, and telling everyone else might not be quite so easy. Except maybe Cream and Vanilla.

"Hey, maybe I can tell Knuckles so I can save you all of the trouble."

Sonic shook his head. "No, Jet and I are probably going to have to tell everyone ourselves. Some people might get ticked off at you, and you might end up getting the first blow if you tell everyone about our secret."

"I guess you're right. But don't say anything you won't regret Sonic. It might make people not like you that much when you really want them to support you."

"I will, I promise. But I guess I need to do something first."

"What's that, Sonic?"

"I need to get to know Jet better. I only know the racing and showing-off side of him, and we've only been 'dating' for a night and a morning. I'm already telling you that we're in a full-fledged relationship even though we haven't even been together for more than an actual full day."

"Well, you have a full ride of talk about each other. When you're ready, I'll be here to help you when you tell everybody about your relationship."

"Thanks, buddy. Listen, Jet went over to his room to get himself ready for the day, so I'm going to go over to his room and we're going to do something fun."

"Alright, that's good Sonic. It's nice to see that you actually like someone, even if it is someone like Jet."

"Thanks."

Sonic went away from Tails and went back down to his deck to go to Jet's room. When he turned the corner into the hallway full of rooms, he went over to Room 94: Jet's room. Though, before he could knock on the door, Sonic noticed his own door open up with Knuckles stepping out of it. Sonic turned his eyes and his gaze met Knuckle's. Knuckles knew that Sonic was in front of Jet's room, and that Sonic was probably going to take Jet somewhere.

Despite Knuckles being there, Sonic knocked on the Babylon's door anyways. Knuckles simply went past Sonic without really acknowledging that he was even there. Though, Knuckles didn't completely leave the area. He turned around the corner into the room with the stairs and elevators and waited for Sonic and Jet to come. He was planning something devious for the two of them.

Two minutes later, Sonic and Jet appeared in the room and pressed one of the buttons to call an elevator. When an elevator opened up, Sonic and Jet stepped inside. Before the door closed, Knuckles ran to them and yelled for them to hold the door. They did so, and Knuckles went inside to join them.

"So where are you guys going this morning," Knuckles asked with a faint and sleepy smile.

Jet responded tentatively, because this was his first encounter with Knuckles since he was called a piece of crap the night before. "We're just… heading to the Racer's market to… check out some of the Gear in there."

"Oh, I was actually heading there myself," Knuckles lied. "Do you guys mind if I join you?"

Sonic looked at Knuckles with a face filled with disbelief. He knew for a fact that Knuckles was not interested at all about anything of this sport other than the competition and the winning. Though, Sonic decided to play along with whatever Knuckles was doing. "Alright Knuckles. It's pretty boring in there, but you're welcome to join us if you would like."

Jet nudged Sonic on the arm, but Sonic gestured for Jet to keep it cool while he figured out what Knuckles was up to. Jet sighed and tried to ignore Knuckles' presence, because even though he wants to be friends with him, he doesn't want to always have to succumb to Knuckles when he's being a jerk.

The elevator doors opened, and the three of them stepped out into the Racer's Market. In the day time, light flooded in from the windows, which made the whole market brighter and with more style than the night before. They all went down the long hallway of shops until they reached "The Grand Racer" which definitely deserved a name like that. The store was the largest one in the market, and it had the best merchandise. Even at this early hour, there were still quite a few people browsing the many Gears and attachments.

Jet's face lit up, because he was now in his own little realm of racing stuff. Although he has Wave's inventions to admire from time to time, he always found himself going into these shops just to look at the variety of racing gear. Sonic joined him with him being really excited. They almost forgot that Knuckles was even there, but that would ruin Knuckles' plan, wouldn't it?

"Man, don't you guys just LOVE all of this racing stuff. It's almost like loving your best friend."

Sonic turned around, feeling a little uncomfortable. "Why would you say something like that, Knuckles?"

"Oh, I don't know. I heard that many racers have a connection with their boards, kind of like having a connection with their friends. I guess I'm trying to make an analogy out of this sport."

Sonic forced a laugh, "I didn't know that you were in to racing all that much, Knuckles. I can see that you have a connection of your own with your board."

"You bet. Sometimes I can even kiss my board for bringing me all the way to the finish line, kind of like...—"

Sonic interrupted Knuckles. "Kind of like kissing your best friend?"

Knuckles gave Sonic a weird look and said, "Ew, why would you think something like that, Sonic?"

Sonic sighed and placed his palm onto his face. It was clearly obvious that Knuckles knew everything about Sonic and Jet's relationship, and was making a pretty big effort to embarrass them in a public area like this. For both his and Jet's sake, Sonic finally spoke up and said, "Alright, Knuckles. Let's go for a little walk. We need to have a talk."

Knuckles smiled, because he got what he wanted. "Alright, Sonic, if you insist." Sonic and Knuckles then stepped outside while Jet continued to admire the entire story in it entirety.

Sonic took Knuckles on a walk around the Racer's Maker and began by saying, "Alright Knuckles, we both know what this is about, so how about you spill it so we don't have to waste any more of each other's time."

Knuckles laughed a little to himself and said to Sonic, "Yeah, fine. I guess that's fair."


	11. Storm of Games

Feel the Air

Chapter 11 – Storm of Games

"So…" Sonic started, "when did you find out?"

Knuckles sighed and said, "You know how last night you brought Jet over to our table last night, and I made of the both of you?"

Sonic frowned and responded, "How would I forget something like that? You insulted my boyfriend. You didn't know that he was my boyfriend, but you insulted him."

"Please, don't use the term 'boyfriend' around me. It makes me uncomfortable."

"Fine. Continue."

"So… the entire table told me to go apologize to the two of you, so I was forced to get up. Though, when I got there, you two were sitting on the stairs, and Jet was crying pretty badly. I have never seen Jet cry like that, and I actually wanted to apologize at that point. But then… you actually kissed him."

"Oh… yeah. I didn't think you actually saw that. When I went to the "bathroom", I was actually following him. I won't go into anything more than that, but in the end, we ended up getting into a relationship. All I'm looking for from you is for you to accept that, instead of following me and Jet to a store you don't even like and make us feel uncomfortable."

Knuckles laughed a little to himself. "Yeah, I'm sorry for doing that. But you have to admit what I did there was at least a little funny."

Sonic frowned at Knuckles for a second and then smiled. "Yeah, I guess it was a little funny."

Knuckles smiled and threw his arm around the back of Sonic's neck. "Now, there's the blue hedgehog that I remember. Always in a good mood to the point where it annoys me."

"Now there's the red echidna that I remember. Always being arrogant to the point where it annoys me."

Knuckles laughed awkwardly and said, "Yeah, I guess." Knuckles released Sonic and they faced each other again. "So… does anybody else know about you and Jet?"

"Just Tails. Jet and I are being a little bit too public about our kissing, and Tails caught us up in the buffet area."

Knuckles sighed, "Sonic, I eat there. Can you at least keep it away from the food?"

Sonic laughed and said, "Knuckles, when you find some love for yourself, you'll understand when you start kissing over the food. You just have to stop being so lonely."

"I'm not lonely; I just don't need to drag around a girl with me wherever I go."

"Then maybe you should find yourself a guy. It's worked out for me."

"No, I'm straight as a line. Guys are gross."

"I don't know. I know you've been eyeing Storm for quite some time." Sonic then began to walk away laughing before Knuckles completely explodes on him.

"Sonic, I just fall on Storm awkwardly ONE TIME, and you don't seem to let that go!" Sonic laughed even louder after hearing Knuckles. Sonic knew Knuckles was as straight as a line, but it was fun to make fun of someone as arrogant as Knuckles is.

Sonic then returned to the store and found that Jet was examining one of the boards on display.

"Did you find anything that you like," Sonic asked.

"No, but I did find a lot of things that I didn't like. Look at this board. It clearly has a poorly-made warp receptor."

Sonic looked good and hard at the board, but couldn't make anything of it. Sonic then said with uncertainty, "Oh yeah, only an amateur to Gear designing would make such a mistake."

"I know."

"Well, Jet. If you knew that there were going to be things that you weren't going to like in here, then why did we even come here in the first place?"

"Oh, I almost forgot! I need to show you something really important." Jet got somewhat excited and led Sonic to the other side of the store. Sonic had no idea what Jet had to show him.

When they got to the other side of the store, Jet grabbed something off of one of the shelves and showed it to Sonic. Sonic looked at it for a second and noticed that it was a jacket that was blue, red, and yellow. Sonic knew immediately what those colors meant to him.

Sonic gently grabbed the jacket and asked, "Jet, what is this?"

"I was wandering around here before I went to go find you in your cabin the other day. I saw this, and the cashier told me that the top three teams had their color printed on jackets. This is… why I went to tell you about… how I felt about you."

"This jacket… reminded you of me." Sonic felt the fabric of the jacket and liked how comfortable it was for just being a racer's jacket. He looked up at Jet and saw that he had a nice and cute smile on his face. "I'm going to buy it for you, Jet."

"What, why? You shouldn't be the one to buy me gifts. That should be the other way around."

"Well, it says on this sign here," Sonic pointed to a nearby sign, "that all owners of each of these teams will get this jacket for free. Since I'm already getting one, then I guess I should get one for you."

"But- …"

Sonic silenced him and simply shook his head. "Jet, you have done so much for me, and you seem like you want to just keep doing me more favors for the rest of our lives. I'm happy, and now I want you to be just as happy as I am."

Jet tried to think of something to say back to Sonic, but he couldn't. "Fine, I guess you win this time, Sonic." Jet then lightly kissed Sonic on the cheek. "But, I just want to let you know that I am as happy as you are. I chose you for that reason."

Sonic held his hand to where Jet had just kissed him. "Thanks, Jet." Sonic went over to the cashier and dropped the jacket onto the counter. The dark green hedgehog cashier scanned the jacket and said, "Your total comes out to 26 rings."

Sonic got out 26 rings and dropped them onto the counter. "I think that should cover it."

The green hedgehog counts through the array of rings and nods his head. "Would you like a bag for that jacket, sir?"

"No, thanks anyways."

"Have a good day."

Sonic grabbed the jacket and went over to Jet. "This is officially yours, Jet." Sonic offered the jacket to Jet and Jet took it off of his hands.

"Thanks, Sonic. I appreciate it." Jet unzipped the jacket and put it on; zipping it back up after it was over his shoulders.

Sonic got a good look of Jet after he put on the jacket and said, "You look nice in that jacket."

Jet blushed lightly and said, "Thanks, Sonic."

"What should we do now, Jet?"

"I think Storm said he would be at the arcade by now. Do you still want to go there?"

"Of course, I do. I love games."

Jet smiled and nodded, leading Sonic to the arcade. They went around the ship searching for it since Jet didn't know exactly where it was. Eventually they made it to a large room that was packed full of games that are known from all around Mobius.

"Wow… this place is huge," Jet stated.

"Yeah, and I'm surprised it's not filled to the brim with people."

"Most people on this ship are way too competitive to even understand the concept of fun," Jet said with a smile.

"Most racers are so boring."

"Come on. Let's go find Storm. Hopefully he's here already."

Sonic grabbed hold of Jet's hand and they slowly looked around the vast arcade, admiring the many arcade of games. Most of these games, Sonic recognized, but some of them were so foreign that he couldn't even tell what they were. He was eager to find out. Jet was as well. They continued to search the arcade for Storm until they made it towards the back of the arcade.

In front of them, they could see a grey head pop out over one of the chairs of a game. They noticed that the grey head belonged to Storm. He was playing some kind of racing game, and he was showing clear signs of frustration. Jet embarrassingly let go of Sonic's hand and went over to see Storm's progress. Sonic followed closely behind.

When Sonic got over there, he had noticed that Storm was in second place, following closely behind the first place racer. Storm clearly didn't like this and made every attempt to get around the racer. Though, he made a dumb mistake when he wasn't paying attention to the track and ended up crashing into a wall. Storm grunted as several racers passed by him, bringing him down to fifth place.

Jet laughed brightly. "Such bad luck, Storm. You can do better than that."

Storm turned to his side to look at Jet and said, "Yeah, boss. These games have been tearing me apart today, and now I can't get first place anymore."

"Well, let's put it to the test. Do you mind if Sonic and I join you?" Sonic's ears perked up when he heard his name.

"Sure, boss. We can cream that little blue hedgehog together."

Jet looked over at Sonic and Sonic smiled. "We'll see, Storm. You'll be rooting my name when you and Jet are behind me at the finish line."

Jet smiled deviously. "I believe that's a challenge." Jet grabbed himself a game console next to Storm, and Sonic sat next to Jet. Sonic and Jet looked at each other and smiled.

"I'll see you at the finish line, Jet."

"No, we'll be seeing Storm at the finish line." Jet winked his right eye and turned back to his game so he could choose a car.

Sonic chose his own car and the three of them were ready to play. Storm selected the track and they simply waited for the level to load. When it did, the three of them got prepared to win this.

When the green light finally lit up, the three of the zoomed off, instantly attempting to get ahead of all of the computer players. After only the first lap, Sonic, Jet, and Storm managed to get so far ahead of the computer players that there was no chance for any of them to catch up. For most players, they would only dream to get to the three computers. These three racers were not like most players.

They stayed neck-and-neck for the entire second lap. Though, when they crossed the starting/finishing line the second time, their placings began to fidget. Storm was making more and more mistakes and was beginning to fall behind, while Sonic and Jet were making a near-flawless run. Storm was getting frustrated again as he saw that he was in third place. He tried to pick up the pace, but Sonic and Jet were not even going to let him come close.

In the end, Sonic and Jet were really close together when they hit the finish line. In reality, Jet had actually won, but he won by only a quarter of a second. The three of them looked at the scoreboards and Jet cheered valiantly that he won, while Storm was upset that he lost to Sonic by a full 5 seconds.

Storm got frustrated enough to the point where he just left the game so that he could find something that he could actually win at, even if he didn't particularly enjoy it. By that time, all Storm really cared about was winning. He was a Babylon racer, so it made sense.

Sonic and Jet, on the other hand, stuck around. Sonic kissed Jet on the cheek, hoping that no one in the arcade noticed it. "You did a good job, Jet. Congratulations."

"Eh, it's no big deal. I only beat you by a little bit."

"But I guess it's something to celebrate."

Jet chuckled and gently shoved Sonic. "Well, let's not celebrate. That was just a game. We still have to wait for the real thing to happen out on the track tomorrow."

Sonic smiled deviously. "Oh, even after what we've been through, you still want that trophy, now don't you?"

Jet nodded his head, "Yeah, but I guess I can just stick with the trophy that I have now."

"You have a trophy?"

Jet nodded again. "Yeah." Jet kissed Sonic on the lips. "Let me tell you, this trophy has golden lips and a golden body." Jet kissed him again. "And the gold shines like a sun."

"Hm… that sounds a lot like me."

Jet chuckled.

"What a coincidence."


	12. Dome of Feelings

Feel the Air

Chapter 12 – Dome of Feelings

Jet and Sonic continue to kiss in the midst of the arcade, hoping that no one would notice. At that point, though, they hardly cared if anybody saw them since Tails and Knuckles already saw and they were perfectly fine with it. Though, Jet was a little paranoid that if Storm were to see them kissing, then he might report it to Wave. She would be furious and annihilate Jet without holding anything back.

After the two separated their kiss, Sonic chuckled a little bit, causing Jet to ask, "What's so funny, Sonic?"

"I just think that it's funny that we can pretty much kiss anywhere we want without us really caring about anybody watching."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe we should stop doing that unless we want to end up on the news or something."

"I don't think it would be all that bad. I can see the headlines now: "Fastest racers alive are now in a relationship."

Jet chuckled and said, "Yes, but I can also the headlines 'Purple swallow and pink hedgehog kills Hedgehog-Hawk relationship.'"

"Don't worry about Amy and Wave right now. They will figure out about our relationship eventually, and they'll just have to deal with that they need to find somebody else. Who know, maybe they'll date each other."

Jet laughed a little bit harder and said, "Wave would probably kill Amy much faster than she would date someone like her. They have nothing alike, and Amy's constant complaining would drive Wave nuts."

"I wouldn't blame her. Amy sure drives me nuts."

Jet smiled. "Yeah." Jet looked around the arcade to notice that the place was starting to get a little more packed with players. Amongst all of the players, though, Storm was nowhere to be found. "Storm must've left because he was too upset about losing too many games."

"Maybe. We did embarrass him a lot by completely destroying at that race that we just had."

Jet laughed. "We sure did. There's more where that came from. We'll try to defeat him again later, but in the meantime, let's find something a little bit better to do."

"What did you have in mind?"

"While at dinner the other night, Wave was telling me about the top deck where it's just a giant glass dome where you can see the clouds as they rushed by. I didn't really care about it too much before, but I was wondering if you wanted to go check it out with me."

Sonic nodded his head and said, "That actually sounds like a cool idea." Jet then reached out his hand and Sonic grabbed it. They held hands all the way to the elevator. When the elevator doors opened, they were surprised that the person standing inside so happened to be Wave.

Jet got nervous and immediately snatched his hand from Wave in order to avoid getting any questionable looks from her. The two of them entered the elevator with her and noticed that the button to the top floor was already pressed.

"You're going to the top deck too, Wave," Jet promptly asked.

"Of course I am. Seeing the sun and the clouds as they rush by is a good way for me to… clear my mind of some ungraceful things."

Sonic didn't want to think it, but he knew that Wave was referring to him. He tried to lighten the mood by saying, "Yeah, I agree with you. I guess that's why we're all racers in order to have that feeling to be among the clouds and feel the air as it rushes by. I think you guys can agree that it feels good to be up in the air."

Jet nodded, but Wave neglected to even say anything. Sonic, knowing his attempt to clear the air had failed, just decided to keep his mouth shut. He knew that everything he said would just make Wave more upset, so he stopped trying.

The elevator doors finally opened up, letting out the entire awkward moment that was concealed inside. As the three of them exited, they got to have a taste of what the sky truly looked like as it rushed by at high speeds. Most times, they don't get to see this because the water from the clouds gets in their eyes or goggles while going up at this altitude. Now, it was a totally different experience.

Sonic and Jet went to one side of the glass dome while Wave decided to ignore them and move to the other side. After noticing that Wave wasn't following them, Sonic and Jet just shrugged, trying to admire the view without having to deal with the drama that she's bringing with her.

But they couldn't get her off of their mind. First, they would think about how amazing the clouds are. Then, they would think about how much Wave is in a bad mood and that she's probably going to get really mad one of these days. They would then go back to the clouds and then back to Wave. It was a bit of an endless cycle, and it was irritating for both Sonic and Jet since they just wanted to have a nice romantic time "up in the clouds".

"Maybe you should go hang out with her," Sonic finally suggested.

"What? But I want to hang out with you, Sonic. That's why we're up here in the first place."

"Yes, but we won't be able to hang out for much longer if she's prepared to kill us whenever we pass her. I can be perfectly happy with watching the clouds by myself, but it looks like Wave needs some love."

"We can't do this forever, Sonic. It would be as if I were dating you and her. I'm not exactly comfortable with that."

"I don't want you to do something that you don't like, Jet. We just need to cool her down a little before we tell her about us, and then, you won't have to do it anymore."

"I guess you're right. I'll go hang out with her." Jet then looked around to see if there were any watchers. When he got the all-clear, he gave Sonic a little peck on the lips before scampering off to meet up with Wave. Sonic blushed because even though he had just sent Jet off to hang out with Wave, Jet was still good to his love by kissing him in a public area. He kind of liked that.

Sonic ended up waiting a good 20 minutes watching the clouds rush by while waiting for Jet to return from his "endeavor" with Wave. He had to admit that for the past five minutes he was getting pretty bored watching the clouds without anybody to talk to. He wasn't lying when he said watching the clouds was serene, but he didn't plan doing it for as long as he did. Though, he stayed there and looked interested, because he knew that what Jet was doing was important for the both of them.

Finally, though, Jet came back, hopefully with good news about Wave's mood. "So… how is she?"

Jet shrugged. "She didn't yell at me like she normally does, so I'd like to think that that's a start."

"Did you guys chat or something?"

"She wasn't in much of a talkative mood at first, but as I began talking to her, she opened up a little. She still doesn't really like you all that much, but I guess she doesn't hate you either."

"Well, that's progress. Maybe we can tell her in a few days about our relationship when she's a little more comfortable with you and me hanging out all of the time."

"Yeah, I'd like that."

Sonic turned his attention back to the clouds and said, "You know… while I was over here, I saw a cloud that looked just like you."

"How could you see something like that when it's coming at you so fast?"

"I guess I was just paying attention. Things like that can't get past me without me noticing it."

This made Jet blush. He leaned in to give a quick kiss to Sonic, but as he did so, he noticed that Wave was approaching them, so he backed off. "Hey, Wave," Jet said hesitantly.

"I was wondering if I can join the two of you. I'm getting…" Wave stopped herself because she didn't want to tell them that she was getting lonely while she was over there. She revised her sentence and said, "I just felt you two needed some company."

Jet was curious as to what Wave was about to say, but he didn't really care too much about it and simply said 'Yes'. Wave then stood to the right of Jet, watching as the clouds rush by.

"I'm sure this brings pretty good memories, Jet. Racing as high as you could was one of your favorite things when you were younger."

Jet smirked. "You say that as if you were my mom. And besides, it's still one of my favorite things to do now."

Wave sighed at the 'mom' comment, but she tried to ignore it. "I'm just saying. It's just a nice spot to be in when you need to relieve stress. It's especially nice when you're outside and the wind is blowing in your face."

Sonic nodded in agreement and said, "Yeah. That's why I enjoy doing things fast and going on runs, because the rush of racing gives me more energy than anything else." Sonic felt pretty dignified about what he said, but then he realized that Wave is probably going to be mad for speaking.

Thankfully for him, she actually responded legitimately despite her innermost feelings about him. "That's definitely what we Babylonians live for. Speed."

For the next hour, all three of them talked about the feeling of racing and how it affects them personally. Normally, Sonic wasn't really comfortable talking about racing around the Babylonians, because he felt that it would spark a competitive vibe, which is something he wanted to avoid. Though, no such spark was ever lit while they were, and Wave actually seemed like she was warming up to Sonic's presence every second they talked. She responded to his inquiries and she laughed at his jokes. Sonic knew that finally Wave would be comfortable with hanging around him, but he wasn't exactly sure if telling her about him and Jet was appropriate yet.

Wave laughed at another one of Sonic's slick jokes before hearing her stomach rumble. "I guess we've been here for a pretty long time. Should we go down to the buffet to get some lunch? I normally would go with Storm, but he could be anywhere on this blasted ship."

Jet looked over at Sonic and Sonic nodded happily. This made Jet smile. "Sure, Wave. Let's go."

The three of them then went down to the buffet area again, feeling as if they had just left it. Since Sonic was such a hefty eater, he felt like he practically lived there, even though he only goes twice or possible three times a day. They all then dispersed to get some food.

After a few minutes of getting their food, they all met up at a table and sat down to eat. Sonic and Wave began eating right away while Jet examined all of their food. Ironically, Jet was the one with the chili dogs in his tray while Sonic ate some kind of pasta and chicken and Wave ate the exotic foods that were similar to what Tails and Knuckles were eating the first night on the ship.

"How can you guys eat such… slop?"

Wave rolled her eyes. "You'll never learn Jet. Believe it or not, there is actually better food than those chili dogs of yours."

"Hm, I guess I understand you, Wave. But Sonic, I thought your diet was only of chili dogs."

Sonic shrugged his shoulders and simply said, "Things change." Sonic didn't bother to say anything about how he had a meal other than chili dogs the other night that expanded his palette of food.

Jet just sighed and stuck with his chili dogs. This caused Sonic and Wave to laugh.


	13. Short-Lived

Feel the Air

Chapter 13 – Short-Lived

The three of them continued to eat their lunch, chatting about several different topics. Sonic thought it was kind of nice to finally hear some of Wave's opinions when she's in a good mindset. She was intellectual and a little bit funny. She reminded Sonic a little bit of Tails, since they are both keen inventors and are determined to get everything they're set on done.

"You know, Wave. I'm sure that if you can talk to me about this kind of stuff, you can probably get along with Tails pretty well."

Wave rolled her eyes a little as she pushed her empty plate to the side. "Flyboy may be good with his hands on his inventions, but I don't think he'd be the type of person that I'd have long conversations with."

Jet chuckled. "So instead, you talk to me about things that I don't understand. Then you expect me to smile, nod, and approve of every smart thing you said."

Wave pouted a little bit and responded, "Well maybe if you read a book or two, you'd understand something about the gears that you ride so quickly on."

"As long as I can ride them, I don't need to know a thing about them. What's the point about that?"

Wave sighed and Sonic chuckled to himself. "I'm sorry, Wave, but I have to agree with Jet on this one. Speed is our game, not mechanical stuff."

"Yeah, well, whatever. One day when your gear is all busted from your abusive nature, then don't go running to me. I'll be working on my own gear thank you very much."

Sonic and Jet laughed, not even relatively thinking that Wave was serious.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to head to the restroom and wash up." Wave got up from the table and headed off to the nearest restroom on the deck.

When Sonic and Jet were sure that she was gone, they gave each other a quick kiss on the lips and smiled. Sonic started by saying, "I think we definitely got her to like me now. I never thought that would ever be possible."

"Well I guess we should be glad about it for now. She's a temperamental girl, and her mood could change pretty easily and quickly."

"I don't know, though. She'll warm up to me eventually. Maybe we'll be able to tell her about our relationship before possibly our wedding or something."

Then there was an awkward silence. Sonic tried to think about what he said that caused that silence, but then Jet gave him the answer.

"Wait… you're thinking about a wedding?"

This shocked Sonic into reality, "Oh, uh… I don't know. I was thinking… hypothetically."

"So… you're not thinking about a wedding."

This made Sonic uncomfortable, more so than he was before. Sonic was lost for words and didn't know how to respond correctly to Jet's inquiry. Instead, he just stated something that he already did know. "I just made things awkward, didn't I?"

Jet smiled and couldn't help himself from kissing Sonic on the cheek, causing Sonic's whole muzzle to go a slight red. "We've been dating for a few days. Obviously we're not ready to talk about getting married or any of that serious stuff, so we don't have to even think about it. Why don't we just talk about telling Wave about our relationship some day and come up with a defense strategy just in case she decides to kill us?"

Sonic smiled, "That sounds like a good plan. So… what I'm thinking is we should walk up to her with a full suit of armor on, tell her about our relationship in less than ten words, and then we'll run really fast."

Jet chuckled. "I don't think that's going to work very well. One, I don't think I can get on my gear with a thousand pound suit of armor on me. Two, her glare can pierce through solid steel, so I'm pretty sure that it would be any help to us."

"Great. I guess we have to actually do the sensible thing and tell her about us and negotiate with her that she doesn't have to be so furious with us. But that sounds like a lot of work."

"Stop your complaining, Sonic. Besides, if any of this stuff fails, then I guess we can just kill her."

There was an awkward silence again, but this time it only lasted for a few seconds and it was followed by a lot of laughter. Though their incessant laughter was unfortunately cut short since Wave's trip to the bathroom was quick.

"What are you two laughing so loudly about? I heard you guys all the way from the bathroom and I thought was murdering you or something."

Sonic and Jet finally calmed down and Sonar put himself together enough to say, "Don't worry about it too much, Wave. It doesn't really involve you that much anyway." Ironically, it involved her and only her, but Sonic obviously didn't want to give any hint of that.

Wave didn't really like that all that much since she was used to being included in everything. Since she especially wants to be included in with Jet, this makes her upset a little bit. "No, I'm curious. What are you guys talking about?"

Jet shook his head and casually said, "Serious, Wave, you wouldn't be interested in this topic anyways." Again, this is an ironic statement.

"Oh please, Jet. I'm interested in a lot of stuff, and you're telling me the one thing that you two are laughing about just so happens to be uninteresting."

Jet rolled his eyes and said, "That's exactly what I'm say, Wave. I've been on the same team as you for so many years; you'd think I know a thing or two about what you like."

This got Wave really infuriated, which caused Jet to think about what he said that could've gotten her so mad. Wave was thinking, 'If you knew a thing or two about me, you'd know that I've been giving you obvious signs of affection for you. Yet… that seems to be the one thing you ignore.' Obviously, she didn't say anything like that out loud, but she sure wanted to.

Instead, she said, "Hm… then I guess you know more about me than I do Jettord A. Hawk. Maybe you should write an entire book about my life and my feelings since you clearly know way more facts about what I think that I can even think. Maybe then, I'll be up to speed about me."

After that heap of yelling, Wave just simply stormed off, leaving the entire deck to go find someone else to yell at. That someone turned out to be Tails who was on his way up to get just a simple lunch.

This left both Sonic and Jet in a daze and a shock, wondering what they could have possibly said that got her that wired up.

"We'll talk about what just happened in a second, but is your real name actually Jettord A. Hawk?"

"No. My name is actually Jet Hawk, and I do not have a middle name. I think she was so mad at me, that she made up a name with more syllables just so she can yell at me for some more. I… don't know what to say to that."

"I don't know, either. We were so close to getting her to like us being together as friends, but I guess she still just likes you too much or something."

"I know, I know. We'll tell her eventually. It doesn't even matter at this point if she doesn't like you, because it doesn't look like she's going to like you anyways."

"Yeah." The two of them looked around and saw that the room was fairly empty and that not a lot of people heard Wave yelling at them. They were relieved for that. "You know, it's interesting that there are so few people going around the ship already. When the last race got rid of half the ship, it almost feels a little empty."

"And the race tomorrow is like that, too. Half of the racers will be sent home while the other racers will continue living on the ship."

"In fact, I'm pretty sure all of the races are kind of like that. Losers go home while the others get to stay on the ship."

"Sonic, I think I just realized something." Both of them smiled because they both came to the same realization. Though, Jet was the one to actually say it, "If we're the last two teams to proceed to the finals, then we'll have the entire run of this place. We can basically do whatever we want without anybody on the ship getting in our way or seeing us kissing or something."

"Yeah, that's only if we make it to the finals."

"Why do you say 'if'?"

Sonic put Jet's hand into his own. "I believe in you, Jet, but I think Wave may be too angry to be a good part of the team, and Storm is too stupid to really understand."

"I don't know. Wave constantly tells me that we shouldn't let our emotions get in the way of the race, and she's normally not a hypocrite with that kind of stuff."

"Alright, I guess. Just, you know, try your best." Sonic planted a brief kiss on Jet's cheek. "Just imagine what it would be like to have this entire ship to ourselves to do some of the most fun things in Mobius."

Jet rubbed the kiss mark and replied, "With that in mind, I don't think I can ever lose now."

This made Sonic smile. The two of them had a new-found confidence that didn't seem to be diminished by people like Amy and Wave. Sonic stood up and extended a hand out to Jet. Jet grabbed the hand and they went over to the elevators to find something better to do.

"So… where to," Sonic asked.

"Why don't we head back to my room and check out the little pamphlet that tells us what is going to happen today?"

"That sounds like fun."

They hit the number '9' in the elevator and they traveled down to deck 9. When they reached the deck they headed for Jet's room, immediately getting rid of each other's hand when Storm just so happened to walk past. When he was gone, they grabbed each other's hand again and approached Jet's door.

Jet grabbed his key and said, "Hopefully Wave isn't back yet. We're not going to be staying for long, but something tells me she'll still have enough time to kill us."

"Well, if she's here, maybe you can apologize or something."

"Why would I want to do something like that? I didn't do anything wrong so I shouldn't have to be sorry that Wave is being a b…."

Sonic interrupted and said, "It doesn't matter if what you did was wrong, but she will never stop giving me the death glare unless you apologize. She always thinks she's right, so she will be expecting an apology."

"And a decent one at that. Yeah, you're right, I guess. But have the suits of armor ready just in case I somehow say something else that may get her to kill me."

Sonic chuckled to himself. "Alright."

Jet finally twisted the key in the lock and opened the door. To his surprise, Wave was actually not in the room. "Hmm… well I guess that's lucky for us. Now I don't have to apologize until later."

Sonic rolled his eyes and the two of them entered. Jet closed the door behind him and then grabbed the pamphlet that was lying on his clean bed. He checked the time (12:48) and then looked down at the pamphlet.

"Well, if we hurry, we can make the 'Mobian Rain Dance Lessons'."

"That's a joke, right?"

Jet looked up and gave Sonic a blank look. "The description says Mobian Rain Dance Lessons. Do you think I would ever step foot on a dancing floor?"

"You'd probably do it if I were there."

Jet blushed a little and responded, "Yes, but that's different. I love you, and dancing with you would be… nice one day."

Sonic smiled. "That would be great, Jet." He then turned his attention back to the pamphlet. "But we're not going to do some rain dance. Why don't we head over to the trivia that's starting at the same time?"

"Trivia, really?"

"Why not? I may not get the best grades in school, but I think we'd do pretty good."

Jet sighed. "Fine, but if we leave with a score of 0, I will not be surprised."

Sonic chuckled. "Come on, Jet. It will be fun."

Sonic and Jet then got up from the bed and went over to the door, though they were shocked when it opened in front of them. Unfortunately, on the other side of it was the purple swallow, Wave.

When she saw the two of them, she was about to get furious with them, but then she immediately calmed down. "Where are you two heading off two?"

Sonic calmly said, "We're just heading over to play some trivia."

Wave looked over to Jet and said, "You're actually getting to play trivia with you? You must've paid him a lot to do something like that."

Jet felt an imaginary drop of sweat go down his face as he said, "Well, I guess things change. Why don't you join us… or something."

Wave smiled, thankful for the invite. "Well, I do love trivia. How can I pass up something like that? Let's go."

Sonic and Jet smiled hesitantly, hoping that they are still not on Wave's bad side after all of this.

Though, knowing Wave, it'll probably be a bumpy ride.


	14. Twig and Wave

**If anyone was curious, I will now be posting a chapter every Wednesday! I used to do it on Mondays, but Wednesdays are more convenient. :) That's it. Enjoy the story.**

Feel the Air

Chapter 14 – Wave and Twig

The three of them went down to deck 6 where there were several lobbies for the purpose of people to play simply board games, have a snack to eat, or to just simply chat. Though, on certain hours, a crew member would go into these lobbies and they would play trivia with the guests. Today at this particular hour was one of those times.

Sonic, Jet, and Wave went into the lobby known as the Mobi Lobby where many people of different kinds were already crowded around. They didn't recognize any of the people that were there, but they just kind of figured that it was because none of there friends are particularly interested in figuring out facts and aren't exactly… smart. (Except maybe Tails)

This made it slightly more awkward for Sonic and Jet, because they were stuck in a room next to Wave while everyone else was just complete strangers to them. Though, soon after they sat down, Sonic was happy to see that someone familiar stepped into the Mobi Lobby and sat down at a table all by himself.

Noticing this, Sonic felt that the person should his group. "Hey, I'll be right back, alright?"

Jet and Wave nodded and Sonic left the table. He approached the other side of the room and sat at a table next to the brown hedgehog named Twig.

"Hey, Twig. Why are you sitting here all by yourself?"

"Well, I really wanted to play trivia, but no one really wanted to play with me. Amy went to some silly Mobian Rain Dance lesson, and I wanted to have no part in it. Team Chaotix didn't really want to go either, so I decided to just go by myself."

"Well, I'm playing with a couple of, uh… friends right now. You're can join our team if you want."

"Friends? I don't see Tails and Knuckles in here. Are you with somebody else?"

"Yeah… I'm actually here with Jet and Wave."

"The two racers from Team Babylon? I would ask you why, but I probably should just stay out of it. Yeah, sure, I'll play with the three of you."

"Alright. Thanks."

"Thanks for what?"

Sonic just wanted to say thanks for making it less awkward between him and Wave, but obviously Twig had absolutely no idea about the situation. "For your company… I guess."

"I see."

Sonic and Twig got up from the table, and Sonic led Twig to Wave and Jet. "Hey guys, this is Twig from Team Rose."

Wave gave Twig a skeptical look, "You know, if you're like the pink brat and purple cat that is on that team, I will kick you out of this lobby before you knew what happened?"

"Don't worry. I'm not too fond of the two of them myself. I probably wouldn't be on the same team as them if Amy wasn't so good with a hammer to convince me that I had to."

Wave smiled and said, "Well, Twig, that's probably one of the more intelligent things that I've heard all day."

Twig smiled and replied, "Well I guess we should use that intelligence to answer some of these trivia questions. It seems that it's about to start."

The four looked up to the small stage and noticed that a black and white eagle was stepping up and setting up a rectangular table. When the eagle finally stood up tall, he seemed kind of intimidating, but this is one of those cases where looks turned out to be deceiving.

When he spoke, there was a sense of jollity in his voice, which is probably why he was chosen to be a 'Games Director.' "Hey everyone, my name is Stiles. Is everyone having a good time on this ship?" A couple of people said yes while one enthusiastic raccoon shouted "Woo", causing a few people to chuckle.

"Alright, I hope you all are in here to put your smarts to the test and answer some trivia questions!" The eagle's eccentric words were met with a bunch of Yes's and a few head nods. "Great, then we'll get started. If you know the answer to the trivia question, then all you have to do is raise your hand and I'll call on your team. You don't have to go wild when raising your hand, though. We had someone fall out of their seat in the previous game."

A few people laughed at the thought and Stiles continued. "With that out of the way, I'll start asking some questions. This first one is about Extreme Gear history, so if you know a thing or two about past mechanics, then this question is for you."

Wave brought herself to the edge of her seat when the announcer said this, because she would clearly be the one to know an answer like that. Though, she was surprised when she saw that Twig seemed just as determined and confident to answer the question.

"Listen carefully to what I'm about to ask. In what year did Firebolt's invention, the Rotor Turbo, first get _used _in a race?" Stiles put a great emphasis on the word used so that the contestants wouldn't get confused with the year that the Rotor Turbo was invented, which was two years prior to its first usage.

Despite her interest in Extreme Gear history, Wave was stumped on the exact year that the Turbo was used. She knew the decade, 1880's, but she didn't want to ruin her reputation as a famous engineer to just blatantly guess. Though, it turned out she didn't have to, because after a few seconds of quick thought, Twig's hand shot up and Stiles called on him.

"It was used in the Grand Championships by Cagle the Hawk in 1887."

Stiles smiled and nodded his head. "Good, and nice use of detail. Cagle the Hawk was a rich flyer and he was able to find out and buy Firebolt's Rotor Turbo to win in the race, even though the full product was made in 1885. A point goes to your group."

Twig smiled and faced his group, getting recognition from Sonic, Jet, and Wave. Though, Wave seemed to be the most impressed.

"I can't believe you knew that and I didn't. Firebolt is one of the most famous Extreme Gear engineer in the 1800's."

Twig responded by saying, "I did some studying before entering this competition. I didn't want to enter it without knowing anything about it first."

Sonic laughed and Jet soon joined in. "Why not, Twig? Jet and I don't know a thing about Extreme Gear other than to properly ride them, and we are perfectly happy with what we do.

Twig simply responded by rolling his eyes. "I didn't understand when I was a child, but as I've grown up, I've realized that I would rather know about something than to be able use it masterfully. That's kind of clear because I was able to answer a question like that, but I'm not able to get my Gear off the ground until five seconds after the announcer told me to go."

Wave chuckled to herself, admiring Twig's vast knowledge and maturity. She certainly doesn't get the mature atmosphere that she wants from talking to Jet and Storm, so talking to Twig was a nice change of heart. "Is that why you didn't advance to the next round?"

"Amy and Big made it worse. Their egos were bigger than their flying skills, and they ultimately just stunk."

Wave smiled and laughed again. As much as Wave enjoyed doing some trivia to show people her vast knowledge, she actually enjoyed to be in Twig's company even more. It was rare for her to find her match, while also keeping with a good maturity level. Twig just turned out to be that perfect rare find.

A few more trivia questions went by, but Wave and Twig were ignoring them to ask and answer each other questions (though, it seemed that Wave was doing most of the asking while Twig was just simply answering with short and polite answers while he contemplated the trivia answers). Sonic and Jet were just trying to get through the trivia questions without considering themselves to be complete idiots since they didn't seem to understand the concept of each question, let alone the answer of each question. Though, while they watched Twig and Wave get acquainted, they noticed something interesting.

Jet leaned into Sonic's ear and whispered, "Wave seems to really be hitting it off with Twig for some reason."

Sonic nodded and responded, "Yeah, and it's not really surprising. Twig's a really smart guy, and Wave seems to like it whenever someone actually says something smart."

"So, basically someone that's not me and Storm."

Sonic chuckled. "I guess you can put it that way," Sonic said while nudging Jet's arm. "But that makes me wonder why she liked you in the first place if she likes people who are more interested in what she likes."

Jet simply rolled his eyes and said, "Maybe she just likes my insane flying skills or something, but that's not really important. If she's focusing on how much of a genius that Twig is, then maybe it'll make our lives easier, because she'll like him instead of me."

Sonic's smile faded. "There's actually a problem with that."

"What is it?"

"If you've forgotten, I told you that Twig is actually gay and doesn't want to be with a girl at all. To tell you the truth, actually, he doesn't want to do with anything that has to deal with love anyways. He's always the "stay at home" type of guy and just wants to get work done."

"Well, at least he's buying us some time."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe this will work out for the best."

Jet nodded his head and looked at Twig and Wave. Wave seemed to be asking a lot of unimportant questions about Twig's apparent intelligence, and Twig just simply seems to be too distracted to give full answers. "I think we can probably leave these two alone. They don't look like they're going to be answering any of these dumb trivia questions, and let's face it, we aren't either."

Sonic chuckled. "Yeah, I can't feel any dumber by not knowing any of this. Let's get out of here." Sonic then turned his attention to Twig and Wave and got their attention. "Jet and I are kind of getting sick of this whole trivia thing, so we're just going to leave."

Wave, who was finally sick of asking so many questions about Twig's life, answered, "Yeah, this is getting kind of boring for me, so I think I'll just be leaving as well. Why don't you join me, Twig? We can go talk some more."

Twig smiled and said, "Alright. Why don't you and Jet go ahead? I want to talk to Sonic in private."

Wave simply nodded and Jet reluctantly followed her outside of the room. Sonic and Twig left the room as well in order to avoid the trivia game, but they went in a separate direction as Wave did.

"What's up, Twig? Something wrong?"

"A little. Wave seems charming to me and everything, but it almost seems as if she likes me for some reason. She just spent the past ten minutes asking me some really bizarre questions, and some of them were kind of personal."

"I know, and it's because you're smart."

"Yeah, but I don't like her back, and I feel that she'll be really mad if I tell her I'm gay and she'll want to have my head chopped off."

Sonic put a hand on Twig's shoulder and said, "It's going to be alright. If she's going to chop your head off, we'll help you out and calm her down. But… we need a favor in return."

"Uh… sure. What is it?"

"To tell you the truth… Jet and I are actually dating."

"The green hawk? So the rumors are true."

"What rumors," Sonic asked with a cock of his head.

"Well… it was only one rumor, but someone came into the medical ward with a few minor injuries. While I was recovering their wounds, they continued to tell how weird it was to see you and Jet kissing on the stairs. I thought you were straight so I just thought it was a rumor, but it looks like it's actually true."

"Wow… so rumors are already going around."

"Yeah, but that doesn't sound like the favor. Is there something more that you need to tell me?"

"Yeah… Wave really likes Jet also, and if she found out about our relationship before the right time, she might seriously kill us."

Twig frowned. "I can already imagine what you're going to ask me. You want me to keep being nice to Wave until the "right time", and then I can tell them that I'm a gay, and then you and Jet can tell her that you two are in a relationship."

Sonic chuckled to himself. "That just about sums it up, Twig. Will you do it, though? I know it might be tough, but it will really help and Jet out a lot."

"Yeah, I guess I can do it. That's what friends are for, right?"

"Right. Shall we go?"

"Of course." They then began walking to meet up with Wave and Jet in the adjacent lobby. "Though, can I ask you one favor?"

"Anything, Twig."

"One day… do you think you can tell me what it's like to be in a relationship with a guy? I've never been in one and I'm actually kind of curious."

"Of course, Twig. I can already tell you that you're going to like it. A lot. Though, that will only happen if you find that special someone. I know I have."

"That's good to know."


	15. Separated

Feel the Air

Chapter 15 – Separated

The rest of the day seemed to be pretty good for the group. Sonic and Jet were able to enjoy each other's company without having to worry about Wave getting mad or jealous. She was too occupied with Twig, who was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with her closeness. He's never had a girl (or anyone) be this close, and he can already say that he honestly dislikes it. It perhaps has something to do with the fact that relating with Wave is impossible and saying the right things to make her happy is also equally impossible.

Though, Twig held up his promise with Sonic… to an extent. "I think I'm getting pretty tired, guys," Twig lied. "I think I'm going to head to my room to get some sleep."

"Why," Wave inquired. "It's only 7:30 and the party on this ship has only begun."

Twig gave a fake smile and said, "I've had a long day with patients at the medical ward today. Also, the race is tomorrow, so I'm going to need to be wide awake and alert. I wouldn't want to make a mistake on a hurting patient." Ironically, Twig couldn't make a mistake on a patient even if he was absolutely exhausted. The white gem on his hand uses energy to heal a person's pain and minor wounds. Otherwise, Twig does nothing.

Though, Wave doesn't know that. "I see. Well… would you like me to walk you up to your room? We can finish our conversation."

"No," Twig shouted comically loud. He pulled himself together and just ignored the fact that he spat a little in Wave's face. "Sorry my voice cracks from time to time," Twig lied again, trying to make up for what he did. "You should continue to hang out with Sonic and Jet. I shouldn't hold you up from hanging out with your friends."

Wave was going to say something, but Twig was already walking away from the group at a faster rate than he normally walks. Wave closed her mouth and sighed slightly in despair. "Twig is such an interesting character, but he is so weird."

Sonic then leaned into Jet's ear and whispered, "And a bit of a coward. We lasted way longer with Wave than he did."

Jet chuckled to himself, catching the attention of Wave. "What are you two laughing about?"

Sonic cleared his throat and said, "We're just laughing about… Twig. He tends to act unusual like this."

Wave rolled her eyes and thought, 'That's a bit of a turn-off, but I'll get over it.'

"So what should we do," Jet asked before Wave was able to continue thinking about Twig's strange behavior.

"You two can do whatever you want," Wave started. "I'm going to go to my room and watch some TV or something. It's not like I have anything better to do at this point."

Sonic smiled. "Alright. I'll bring Jet back to your room in one piece in a couple of hours."

"Yeah, whatever." Wave then turned around and headed up the stairs so she could get back to her room. While she did that, Jet turned to face Sonic and they grabbed each other's hands.

"So… what should we do," Jet asked.

"Well… we're too late to make our reservation for the dining hall, but we can still go to the buffet, load our plates with chili dogs, and talk about how much I'm going to beat you at tomorrow's race."

"Oh, so someone's getting cocky. Alright, we'll play your game, except… I'll be the one waiting at the finish line for you."

Sonic smiled and led Jet over to one of the elevators so that they could return to their beloved buffet. They enjoyed the remainder of the night eating a few chili dogs, discussing the race, and watching the clouds as they rushed by in the moonlit sky. It made for a good end to a good day.

The next day started as it normally does for Sonic. He ended up waking up before Knuckles and Tails, even though the clock was already flashing 7:30. As much as he wanted to get back to bed, he also wanted to get the day started so he can get on that race track. Though, first he wanted to get to the buffet area where he can stuff himself with a big breakfast to give him enough energy for the race.

Sonic grabbed himself a key and headed out of the room. He headed up to the buffet area. Upon making it to the buffet, he actually ignored the food and his eyes wandered upon the people eating at the various tables and booths. Though, with a quick scan, Sonic couldn't find his green-feathered boyfriend anywhere. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was actually disappointed that he wouldn't be spending a breakfast with Jet.

Though, his stomach still forced him to get himself a plate and fill it up with a variety of sausages, bacon, and pancakes. He got everything else that he needed and found a table by the wall where he could sit… alone. As he took small bites, his eyes kept wandering around and he constantly looked at every entrance to see if Jet would show up. Though, whenever the door would open up, it always put Sonic on the alert only to find out that it wasn't him.

Sonic sighed desperately and continued to gnaw on a piece of bacon, completely unaware that he had just been awkwardly staring at the elevator doors leading into the buffet area. Though, after finishing his piece of bacon, he looked over to the elevator doors again and was glad to finally see someone that he recognized.

Storm stepped through the elevator doors and went straight to the buffet. Since Storm was much bigger than anyone that Sonic knew, he stuffed his plate with way more food than Sonic was used to. When Storm went to find himself a table, he ended up passing Sonic. Sonic managed to grab his attention.

"Hey, Storm."

"Hello, Sonic. What do you want?"

"Do you know where Jet is?"

"He's sleeping in like he normally does. Who knows when he'll wake up."

Sonic imagined himself rolling his eyes without actually doing so. He then simply said, "Alright. I was just wondering."

Storm then went on his way, leaving Sonic to simply eat by himself. Now that he knew that Jet was sleeping and wasn't going to be joining him, he just ate his food like normal. Sonic was used to doing things by himself, but now that he was in a relationship, he just kind of wished that Jet was there with him.

Sonic continued to eat for the next 15 minutes until his plate was just about completely empty, leaving behind some remnants of syrup and other crumbs. He had considered getting another plate of food, but he realized how filling his first plate was, so he just got rid of the plate and went on his way.

He then left the buffet area and returned to his deck so he could go back to his room. Though, when he got there, he realized that Tails and Knuckles were still asleep and that going into the dark room wouldn't be much of a good idea. He passed by the Babylonians room as well and noticed that there was no light coming from the bottom of the door either.

Sighing, Sonic continued to go down the hallway until he reached the Chaotix's room. Luckily, Sonic found a gleaming light come out from under the door. He knocked on the door, hoping that he wasn't just imagining the light and waking somebody up. He waited for a few moments and the door opened, revealing Vanilla on the other end.

"Hello, Mister Sonic. Is there something that you need?"

"Tails and Knuckles are still asleep in our room and I was wondering if I can stay with you guys for a little bit."

"Oh, of course. You can help Vector get out of bed. I was hoping he would be nice and active for today's race, but he's been a little sluggish."

Sonic smiled and responded, "Alright. I know how to reason with a crocodile like Vector."

Vanilla smiled and happily let Sonic in. Sonic entered the center of the room and noticed that Charmy was desperately trying to wake Vector, as per Vanilla's demand. Sonic, with his big amount of self-confidence, told Charmy to step aside.

Sonic took Charmy's place and said, "Vector, you might want to get up. Knuckles took your headphones and he's threatening to throw them overboard. You might want to go get them before he has the chance to get to the edge of the ship."

Vector's eyes then shot open and he immediately got himself out of his bed. "Where did Knuckles go? Why would he do something cruel to a crocodile like me? Don't answer that, it doesn't matter. I need to get him!" Vector then ran for the door, but Sonic rushed in front of him and blocked the door from his reach. He began chuckling, enraging Vector even more.

"What are you doing, Sonic? Get out of my way!"

"If you were smart, Vector, you would've noticed that your headphones are still on your head. You never took them off last night."

Vector then stopped his rant and felt around his head and noticed that the headphones were still planted over his ears. Vector chuckled embarrassingly. "I guess I wear them so much that I don't even realize that I have them on all of the time. Well thanks for interrupting my sleep, Sonic. I need to get back to bed."

Vanilla tried to reason with Vector. "Vector, don't you know that you have a race today? I thought you really enjoyed doing it instead of sleeping."

"Yes, but that's not for a few hours. Right now, I'll conserve my energy by sleeping."

Charmy rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, Vector! You promised me that you would take me around Oki Valley when the ship landed. How are you supposed to do that when you're sleeping?"

"It's Oni Valley, Charmy. And fine… I guess I can get up for you guys. You all drive a real hard bargain."

Vanilla smiled. "Alright. We're going upstairs to get some breakfast, Sonic. You're welcome to join us."

Sonic shook his head and said, "I already ate."

"Alright. If you're still in your room in an hour, we will come by to invite you to come with us to Oni Valley."

Sonic smiled and replied, "That sounds good."

Sonic let himself out and turned his head to the left. When he did, he noticed something green turn the corner. Before Sonic could even say goodbye to the Chaotix, Sonic rushed over to where he saw the hint of green. When he turned the corner, though, he noticed that he actually just saw someone wearing an unusual green dress.

Sonic sighed, knowing that he was completely obsessing over Jet at this point. He just had to get his mind off of him for a brief moment and wait for him to wake up. Though, he didn't have to wait an extremely long time, because when he back into the hallway with the rooms, he somehow managed to run into Jet.

Jet, not knowing who ran into him when turning the corner, almost said 'Watch it!', but upon seeing that it was Sonic that he ran into, he ended up smiling. "Well, isn't it lucky of me to run into you."

Sonic smiled and responded, "Yeah, it is. You really can sleep in."

"Yeah, I don't like being inactive, but I can sleep for hours with getting tired of it."

"Are you going to get some breakfast right now?"

"Yeah, I am. Someone told us that the ship is going to land in an hour. We can have breakfast and then check out Oni Valley if you want."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Let's go."

Sonic and Jet then entered the elevator to go get Jet some breakfast. They wanted to be nice and full for the race later that day.


	16. Competitive

Feel the Air

Chapter 16 – Competitive

Sonic and Jet had a nice chat and breakfast up in the buffet together. They have such a special connection together that seems to be getting more inseparable as time goes by. Both Sonic and Jet were smiling more and weren't getting stressed out by petty things that conflict in their relationship. For the past couple of days, they have been dealing with the problem of telling some (and avoiding others) about their relationship. Now, they were going to deal with a bit of a more internal conflict: competitiveness.

Upon finishing his final bite, Jet led Sonic back to his room. Thankfully when they opened the door to the room, there was nobody inside, so Sonic and Jet can be on their own for a little bit longer.

"So… are you ready to redeem yourself, Jet. You must've been kind of upset about your ranking last time."

"You know exactly how upset I was with my ranking. You saw me rage at that one bar place."

"Yeah, we all know how competitive you are, Jet."

Jet winked and said, "Well, then I guess you probably shouldn't get in my way from getting to the top, alright? Just because you're my boyfriend doesn't mean I'm going to simply stop my amazing flying skills for you."

Sonic gave Jet one of his cocky smiles and replied, "I see how it is, Jet. Then I guess I won't hold back either and I'll see you at the finish line." Sonic would learn to regret those words later on that day.

"Yeah, well. Thankfully it's not one of those races where we have to race anybody yet. It's one of those individual time trial races. I'll be able to save my good flying for another day."

"Well, it won't be long until you get to see that day. There's a race today and there is a race tomorrow. Let's see if you can even get past today's time trial before talking about being able to fly in tomorrow's race."

"Oh, are we getting cocky now, hedgehog. Alright, let's put it to the test. We should land soon and we'll get to see which one of us is the better flier."

Sonic gave Jet a brief kiss, causing Jet to blush a little. "Yes, well don't waste your breath yet. We still have some time until then."

Jet returned the kiss and replied, "I'm glad I get to be in a relationship with someone like you. It's also awesome that we get to talk like this to each other without actually bumping heads. It keeps the mental pain in and the physical pain out." Jet will also learn to regret these words later that day.

"I think I like that." Sonic smiled. He took Jet's hand in his own and they led each other out of the room. It wasn't more than a couple of minutes before the captain went on the ship-wide intercom to let every rider know that they have landed and that it was time for departure. He also threw in a few details about what's going on:

Oni Valley is a little chilly today and will only prove to be a little cooler later tonight. Bring a light jacket for yourself and everything should be fine on the race track. Oni Valley is also complete with an extraordinary market area that would suit just about everyone's needs. Hopefully, you all have a good time and a good race.

Sonic turned around to face Jet and asked, "Do you want to go back to get our jackets?"

"You mean… the jacket that you bought for me?"

Sonic smiled, remembering how the blue jacket looked against Jet's green feathers. "That's the one."

"Of course. I wouldn't give that up for anything."

They turned around briefly and went back down the hall to go to each other's respective rooms to get their blue jackets. Sonic of course blended nicely with his slick jacket. When Jet exited his room, Sonic got to see him in the blue jacket again.

'He looks so cute in that jacket. It shows off his skinny figure,' Sonic thought to himself. He went over to Jet and gave him a brief kiss on the lips and asked, "You ready to go?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." Finally, the two of them exited their deck and made their way through to the bottom of the ship to exit into Oni Valley. Oni Valley was definitely one of the better-looking places that the two of them have ever been, and their racing has definitely brought them to travel to lots of places before. There was flora around every corner, exemplifying a very green town.

"Should I be the first one to say that this is a very good-looking city or should you," Jet asked.

"Well, I was going to say that on my own, but it's kind of nice to know that you think the same way as I do. I didn't even think you would appreciate it that much."

"Yeah, well… there's nothing that makes a good race for me than a town like this. It almost reminds of Babylon Garden."

Sonic took in his surroundings again and nodded his head. "Yeah, I guess it does."

"I think we have some time before the racing starts, so we can go to the market to do stuff."

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, though I wonder where the market is."

Jet pointed to his left and Sonic looked to see that there were several buildings towering to form a nice market area. "Let's go." Sonic grabbed Jet's hand, not even caring at this point if anybody sees them holding hands. They already got caught by Tails and Knuckles, and they knew that the worst of it was over (other than Wave).

Sonic led Jet to the towering buildings and noticed all of the people that were out in the shops. Most of them they didn't recognize, so Sonic and Jet kind of figured that there were a lot of locals in Oni Valley.

"There's a lot of people here, Sonic," Jet stated simply.

"Yeah, hopefully the stores aren't too packed with people."

They went inside a nearby racing store to find out. Knowing that there is a racing event going on in town, the store was no doubt packed to the brim with people of different ages.

Sonic and Jet simply ignored the huge crowds and continued to browse through the accessories for extreme gears. Unlike the store on the ship, this one was mainly to stylize the gears and the racers rather than to make them better. Even though Sonic wanted to have a cool Gear, Jet did not.

"I don't think we really need to be in here," Jet said. "You said you hated the crowds and this place is packed."

"I don't know. I kind of like this stuff. Maybe I'll find something to make my Gear stand out even more than it already does."

"I guess I don't find it necessary, because I feel that everyone's eyes are on me and not my Gear."

"Well, that's no surprise. Who wouldn't want to look at you?"

Jet blushed a little, but he tried to hide it from the crowds that surrounded him. "You know, if there weren't a whole bunch of people around here, I'd probably kiss you for saying that."

Sonic smiled. "Why don't you do it anyway?"

"Well…" Jet stopped himself and slowly leaned in to give a small peck on Sonic's lips. Though, before the two of them got connected, they got interrupted by a young child's voice.

"Excuse me, mister."

Jet immediately brought his head back to a standing position and rubbed his head embarrassingly. He turned to where the voice came from and noticed that there was a young armadillo standing next to him with an eager look on his face. "Yes," Jet asked, hiding his supposed embarrassment.

"You two are Jet the Hawk and Sonic the Hedgehog, right? Two of the fastest racers in the universe?"

Sonic and Jet nodded. "That's us," Sonic said promptly.

"I'm really big fans of you guys, especially Sonic. Can I get an autograph?"

Jet smiled and said, "Of course you can." Jet reached out to grab a pen from the kid, though the kid was actually giving the pen to Sonic. Sonic, not even realizing that Jet expected to do the autograph, grabbed the pen and signed his name on the armadillo's notebook.

"Who am I signing this for, champ?"

"Oh, my name's Silver. If you want to, do you think you can put my sister's name on there too? Her name is Blaze and she really loves you."

Sonic blushed with a sense of flattery, though the blush went away when he thought of the names. Silver… and Blaze. How fitting. Despite the unusual names presented, Sonic still wrote 'To two awesome people in this world: Silver and Blaze" under his signature. Sonic's writing wasn't absolutely amazing, but he got the point across.

Sonic handed the kid back his pen and said, "I hope you guys enjoy the races later. Jet and I will be trying our hardest out there, and we hope that the two of you will be rooting for us."

"I will. Thank you, Sonic the Hedgehog." The young armadillo, Silver, ran off to possibly brag to his parents and sister about getting an autograph from his favorite racer. This made Sonic smile, though it made Jet frown a little. Sonic noticed this immediately as he turned to see Jet's expression.

"Are you alright, Jet? You seem upset," Sonic said, completely oblivious of Jet's situation.

Of course Jet was upset though. He was thrown into an awkward situation where he was completely dethroned by his boyfriend. On any normal circumstances, Jet would go absolutely nuts if someone topped his like that, but he didn't want to get into a conflict with Sonic. After all, they have only been dating for a few days, and Jet didn't want to ruin everything in one fail swoop. He simply thought of the whole event as a fluke and imagined that there were still several people who still loved him as the leader of Team Babylon.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Sonic. I'm assuming you want to check out the Gear add-ons to make your Gear look cool."

Sonic, glad that Jet wasn't upset about anything, responded, "Yeah. I actually saw a fake flames attachment somewhere in the corner of the store. I'm going to ask somebody if they can make it in blue."

Jet frowned and said, "We don't really have time for that, Sonic. Don't we have only an hour to get to the race? The flames would take longer than that."

Sonic frowned and nodded his head, "Yeah, I guess you're right. Why don't we get out of this store before I buy everything in here to make my Gear extremely cool."

Jet smiled again and said, "Just remember that everyone is going to be looking at you and not your Gear. I know I am."

Sonic smiled, knowing that Jet is returning the favor from his previous comment. "Thanks, Jet." The two of them then went to exit the store, only to be immediately stopped by another person.

"Excuse me," a young, yellow swallow said. Jet saw the young boy looking directly at him, so he was assuming that he wanted an autograph from him, and not Sonic.

Jet responded with a simple, "Yes?"

"Can you move to the side a little? I'm trying to look into the store and you're blocking me from seeing that poster."

Jet turned around and noticed that there was actually a poster at the back of the store with Sonic's face on it. He was infuriated and surprised, because he didn't even notice that when he entered the store. "Uh… yeah, sure." Jet stepped to the side and the young swallow stepped in front of him and entered the store with a smile on his face.

Jet simply frowned at this point. His competitiveness was threatening to boil over and the race didn't even start yet.

The race… that's an interesting story.


	17. Competitive 2

Feel the Air

Chapter 17 – Competitive 2

Jet tried to have a good time with Sonic as they went through the market for the next hour. After all, this was the first time that they have been off of the ship as a couple, so it was a nice change of atmosphere. Though, Sonic's fans were making it difficult for Jet to keep his cool and his competitiveness in check. His low ranking and Sonic's high ranking must've gotten around quickly. He was now nothing to his fellow fans, and he wasn't too happy about his lack of recognition.

Though, he persevered until they got to the race where it really counted. Sonic and Jet had to separate to each other their individual teams before the race started. Mainly because each other their teams were getting pretty angry that they were hanging around each other rather than with their team.

Knuckles placed his palm on his head and said, "Sonic, I know Jet is your… friend, but we have to focus on the race if we're going to win this thing."

Sonic pouted and gave a small glare to Knuckles, saying, "I am focused, Knuckles. My head is in this race as much as your's is."

Knuckles nodded his head and responded, "Well… I guess we'll just have to see how we all do on the race track, shall we?"

Sonic wanted to respond, but Tails just caught him off. "Guys, there is no point in fighting. Why don't you two just shake hands or something and we'll have a good race?"

Sonic and Knuckles nodded each of their heads, shaking each other's hands to make amends to each other. They both smiled, because even though that the team seem separated for the past couple of days, they knew that the race would still be good. They were Team Sonic after all, and they would not falter because of a few previous issues.

Sonic let go of Knuckles' hand and said, "Alright, I think I'm pumped and ready for the race now. When do we go on?"

Tails briefly looked at a nearby signpost and stated that Team Sonic was on in about 30 minutes. Team Babylon goes on shortly before they do. Sonic was thankful for that, because he would be able to see Jet race around the track with Wave and Storm before he went on the track himself.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles headed out to some stands that were close to the starting line. They watched two teams go by, which to Knuckles' standards 'didn't even come close to being good.' That's when Sonic finally noticed Jet, Storm, and Wave step up to the starting line. Sonic's face beamed as he saw Jet standing by his slick board, wearing his signature boots, gloves, and goggles. Though, he didn't make this known to Knuckles and Tails because he knew that he would get scolded by Knuckles.

A referee released the three birds and they all were off, making a flawless entrance onto the track. Though, there was a slight issue when Jet turned his head to the right to watch the cheering crowds. His eyes easily located Sonic's blue fur, distracting him from what he was doing. Sonic could actually briefly make out a bit of red on Jet's beak before Jet began to slow down and briefly lose his balance.

Fortunately, Jet managed to maintain his balance, but his little mishap cost him a few precious seconds and the cheers from the crowds. Sonic knew for a fact that the crowds' cheers were what keep Jet going on a race track. Now… it seemed that he had none.

Basically, after Team Babylon turned the first corner Sonic couldn't see them at all. Knuckles and Tails were able to convince him to wait at the starting/finish line so that they could get ready for their own race. They walked over to the starting platform and got their Gear ready before they went on their race.

Sonic turned to his left and noticed that Jet was coming in. As soon as Jet landed and their time was written down, he didn't even look at the crowds. His eyes only briefly connected with Sonic's before he quickly turned away in some form of shame and anger. He briskly walked away and Wave and Storm tried to catch up with him. Sonic hoped that Wave was going to try comforting him, but he knew for sure that she was going to do no such thing.

Knuckles put his hand on Sonic's shoulder and said, "Don't worry about him, Sonic. His little mistake was on him and should not affect your race, alright?"

Sonic turned around to face Knuckles and nodded his head with a slight smile on his face. As much as he loved Jet, he knew that he had to take one for the team and race without any thoughts of Jet. Sonic eagerly grabbed his Gear and waited for the team in front of them to finish their time-trialed race. Though, they didn't have to wait long since the team was turning the corner into the finish line.

Tails and Knuckles didn't even wait for the team to land before they headed out onto the track and next to the starting line. It took Sonic a second to register that they were about to begin and then raced over to the starting line to join his teammates. They looked at each other with serious looks that all meant the same thing, "Have a good race."

The referee came up with a clipboard, a whistle, and a stopwatch in his hand. "Alright, boys. Team Adventure set a pretty good time and it is going to be pretty difficult to beat, so I suggest you try your best on this one."

Knuckles and Tails nodded their heads. Sonic couldn't help but asking the referee, "How did Team Babylon do?"

The referee lowered his sunglasses and responded, "I don't believe that's any of your concern, Sonic. You're going to have to find that out after the race like everyone else." Sonic flinched and the referee took a few steps back so he will be out of the way of the racers. "Remember, the top 16 will proceed to the next race tomorrow. Prepare you Gear."

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles each prepared their Gears and got ready to begin running.

Ready. Sonic could see Jet sitting on the stands right in front of the starting line. He didn't look happy.

Set. Sonic tried to block Jet out of his mind, because he didn't want to have a bad start like Jet did.

Jet almost seems like he's glaring right at… GO!

Sonic was shocked out of his thoughts as the referee shouted 'go' and blew into his whistle, creating an incredibly high tone that blasted into the air. Sonic ended up having a slightly delayed start, but because of his speed, he was able to take off at about the same time that Tails and Knuckles did. Immediately as he got onto his Gear, Sonic turned to his left in order to avoid Jet's begrudging gaze.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails had a pretty fluent race and were able to avoid many of the obstacle with ease. Before either of them even knew it, the race was already over and they were landing their Gears as soon as they crossed that finish line. Sonic turned around and noticed that Tails and Knuckles were smiling, showing that they had a very good race and that they had an impeccable time. Sonic smiled as well.

"That was a good race, wasn't it," Tails exclaimed.

"That was a GREAT race," Knuckles said proudly.

Sonic continued to smile with a good sense of pride. The three of them exited the race track, as instructed by the referee, and they went over to the nearest machine that was posting the times and current rankings of each team. They waited a few moments, because it took time to input their times and rank them in their proper spots. Though, after only a few seconds, their time popped up and placed them in their appropriate spot.

Fortunately, the Sonic team didn't have to look too far from the top to find their ranking. A good time of 38 seconds and 4 milliseconds placed them in 2nd place, right behind Team Adventure again. They found this kind of surprising, because they have never even heard of this 'Team Adventure' before, and they were suddenly winning every race.

Unfortunately, Sonic didn't have to look too far from the bottom to find Team Babylon's ranking. A poor time of 50 seconds and 10 milliseconds barely put Babylon in 15th place, only in front of a team called 'Team Regular', headed by a bluejay. This put them in a bad place, because there were still a couple of teams that still were to be put onto the ranking board. If both of those teams made it to the next round, Babylon would be pushed out of the tournament and be asked to leave the ship. That would be devastating.

Sonic took his eyes off of the board and looked around the crowds. Fortunately, he was able to catch Jet as he sternly left the stands. Sonic looked to Tails and Knuckles, who were still smiling from their win, and quickly said, "Uh… I have to go." Before the two of them had the chance to even respond, Sonic ran off to catch up with his lover.

Because of Sonic's speed, he was able to catch up with Jet. He put a hand on Jet's shoulder, forcing him to stop and turn around. "Are you alright?"

Jet was clearly unhappy and 'alright' did not describe him in the least bit. "What do you think, Sonic? We had a terrible race on the track and we're almost not even going to make it to the next round. Maybe if you weren't sitting in those stands, I wouldn't have been so distracted throughout the whole thing!"

Sonic frowned and responded, "How is this my fault?"

"Because whenever I look or think of you, I can't help but get distracted and have horrible races, and it's taking a toll on my team! Also, why do you have to be so popular?"

"What are you even…"

Sonic was immediately cut off by Jet. "Back at the market. Not a single person even recognized me as a famous racer, but you have all of these fans that seem to love you unconditionally. You didn't even seem to care that you were stealing all of my recognition."

"I wasn't trying to steal your recognition, Jet. You said you were alright back at the market."

"You should've seen right through that!"

Sonic got a little frustrated. "Oh, so I'm just supposed to be some kind of mind reader and figure out how you're feeling at every moment of every day?"

"Yes!"

"What is wrong you? We said we wouldn't let our competitiveness get out of hand. Why are you all of a sudden being like this?"

"Because I'm more important than you are!"

This shocked Sonic out of his system. He almost couldn't even believe that Jet would stoop so low to the point where he was actually stating that he was more important than Sonic was. He had felt that the relationship was fairly mutual and that they were equal amongst each other. Clearly, Jet didn't have the same idea. Sonic couldn't help himself from frowning, because he didn't want Jet to be angry with him. This was his first relationship, after all.

Jet saw the frown on Sonic's face and his fuse went out. Although he was a little angry still, he did feel bad for showing an over-sense of superiority. "I'm sorry, Sonic. I just need to be left alone for a little bit." Jet then walked away before Sonic could say anything. Sonic wanted to pursue his again, but he knew that that would be a lost cause. He simply went away and tried to find Tails and Knuckles.

Knuckles and Tails exited the huge crowd surrounding the scores terminal and Sonic was able to spot them. He kept a smile on his face, trying to hide the fact that he and Jet had just fought.

Sonic approached the two of them and said, "So… how about we celebrate our 2nd place with something to eat?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes and responded, "Come on, Sonic, did your standards go down? What about 1st place?"

"Have your standards gone up? Come on, let's go eat something. I'm starving."

Tails' stomach began to rumble and he nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, forget about the celebration. I just need some food."

Sonic smiled and laughed, trying to forget the debacle that occurred only moments ago.

Competitiveness seemed to be ruining Sonic and Jet's relationship, and this was only the second race. Sonic could only imagine what could happen in the future with the rest of the races. Though, there probably could be no future for Jet if he continues to do poorly in these races.


	18. Regret

Feel the Air

Chapter 18 – Regret

Oni Valley seemed to be a nicer place to hang out than Plital Heights, even though Plital Heights was one of the better places that the trio has visited. There were plenty more shops in the local town, and the people who lived there were a lot more pleasant and upbeat. They were the type of people where it would be reasonable to speak to for hours on end without getting bored or uncomfortable.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles went searching around the entire town to find someplace where they could get something to eat. They ended up settling at some burger place called "Attaburger". The three of them placed their orders for their drinks and food and continued to take in the nice environment.

"Not that I care, Sonic," Knuckles started. "But where is Jet? I just assumed that you would be taking him everywhere that you went, especially on a day like this."

Sonic tried to hold back a frown. The main point of this lunch is to get his mind off of his fight with Jet, but now his thoughts of regret have returned.

Regret seems to be a common theme amongst relationships. This could be regret of doing something dumb in the relationship, or perhaps it could be the regret of being in the relationship in the first place. In this case, Sonic feels regret for being too dumb to notice that he was taking Jet's spotlight and making him feel left out. He didn't even allow himself to realize that Jet's actions were equally bad.

Sonic's biggest fear is of Jet's current thoughts. He was afraid that Jet could possibly be regretting being in the relationship in the first place. He had never seen Jet become quite so angry with anyone. He was arrogant and tended to be frustrated on small ordeals, but he was never truly the type to be angry. Now… he was, and Sonic was afraid of that.

He caused it.

Sonic blankly stared at Knuckles for a few brief moments before returning to his senses. Sonic formulated an excuse and finally said, "Oh… he decided that it would be better to go to lunch with his team so that they don't get suspicious of us being together all the time. You know… Wave would go nuts if she knew that Jet was dating one of her main competitors."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well… I don't blame her. I think that dating your competitor is basically the dumbest thing you could ever do. It's like walking up to him or her and saying, 'Here, have this. I don't want it.'"

Tails giggled. "Come on, Knuckles. Cut Sonic some slack. Besides, we got second place and Babylon got… actually, I don't know what they got. Sonic, you talked to Jet, what placing did they get?"

"5th place," Sonic stated with too much hesitation. Another lie.

"Hm, I thought they would've done worse than that with the poor takeoff that they had. They must have made up for it. But that just proves my point that their relationship hasn't been affecting our placing at all. If anything, it's making them worse."

Knuckles thought about it for a second and smiled. "You're right, Tails. Stick with this relationship thing, Sonic. It seems that Jet has completely fallen for you and is now completely failing all of the races. Didn't he have this really terrible placing on the first race?"

Tails nodded. "Yeah, I think they got 22nd place last time. That was really strange to get something so terrible."

"That's my point. Jet was probably in love with Sonic at that race, so he did a really bad job. Keep up the good work, Sonic." Knuckles gave Sonic a thumbs-up. Sonic smiled at the thumbs-up, but he didn't truly accept its meaning.

At that moment, he was basically lying right in his friends' faces about his relationship and reflecting on a fight that he had just had with his boyfriend. Or perhaps… ex-boyfriend. Sonic quickly shook that thought, because he didn't want to think that a single fight could have truly been the end of such a short (and good) relationship.

"I'm glad I can help. I'll probably check up on him after lunch, alright?"

Tails nodded and said, "Alright, but don't be gone forever like you have been for the past could of days. We do need to celebrate for getting 2nd place two times in a row."

"Yeah, maybe a celebration will get us a 1st place. Team Adventure's success has been really bumming me out."

Sonic nodded in agreement. Soon after, their food arrived and they began chowing down. After the rough day, Sonic is glad that he can actually get some food in him so he can forget some of the bad things being thrown at him.

A few hours later, the three of them were done with their food and their window shopping and finally made a decision to return to the ship. They stepped aboard, a few of the crew members congratulating them for their placing upon their arrival. They said their thank-yous and stepped into the lobby. With them being one of the last ones to return to the ship, they noticed one thing about the ship: it was getting more empty.

Tails analyzed the situation. "With 16 teams being kicked off the ship, there are now only 17 teams left, with the inclusion of Team Rose. That's only 51 racers. With a ship of this size, places are going to look pretty empty."

"Good thing, too," Knuckles stated gleefully. "That means we won't have to wait in long lines or anything."

Sonic smirked. "Don't be so impatient, Knuckles. We didn't even have to wait in long lines before."

"Waiting is waiting, Sonic. If I have to do any of it, it's too long for me."

"Whatever. The point is that we're going to have a lot more room to ourselves, and I like it that way. We should head back to our room and see what we can do for the rest of the day."

Tails frowned. "I don't know, Sonic. I was kind of looking forward to getting comfortable on my bed and watching some TV. My soap is on and I heard Marjorie is going into labor and I don't want to…" Sonic and Knuckles gave Tails uncomfortable look, causing him to stop. "I mean, professional wrestling is on and I heard Mark is going to win the championship… Yeah, I'm sticking with that."

Sonic and Knuckles chuckled to themselves. Tails scowled at them. "What, I made your Gear for this trip, so I'm allowed to watch whatever I like without being pestered by the two of you."

Sonic smiled. "It's okay, Tails. It's all in good fun."

Tails rolled his eyes. "Fine. Besides, I thought you were going to check on Jet, Sonic. Even though 5th place is still really good, I'm sure he's not too happy about not winning."

Sonic nodded his head. "Oh yeah, I actually forgot about that. Maybe I'm getting tired, too."

Knuckles nodded his head. "Whatever. Tails and I are going back to the room, and you can go check on your boyfriend."

"Okay. You two enjoy your soap. I hope Marjorie has a good, healthy baby." Tails blushed in embarrassment by Sonic's comment and walked to the nearest elevator. Sonic and Knuckles followed slowly behind him.

The elevator went up to their deck and Knuckles and Tails went ahead to their room. Sonic, though, went way more slowly, since he knew that his next encounter with Jet may not be a good one. Sonic tried to keep happy thoughts with him, but it was becoming more and more difficult as he walked to the Babylon's room.

Sonic approached the door to his boyfriend's room and took a deep breath before knocking. He expected a barrage of hate when the door opened, whether it be from Jet or Wave. Though, he felt a little bit of relief when he saw Storm open the door.

"Hi, Sonic," Storm said peacefully, much to Sonic's surprise.

"Hi, Storm. Do you know where I can find Jet? I really need to talk to him."

Storm shook his head. "We all went on the ship together, but Wave and the boss separated and we all went our own ways. I think they're mad about getting the bad score."

"I should've figured that Jet wouldn't be here. We got in a bit of a fight."

"Don't you get in fights with Jet all the time? Why does this one matter to you?"

Sonic was shocked at Storm's surprisingly valid question. Normally Storm would be correct, but he didn't know that Sonic and Jet were in a relationship, and Sonic still wasn't comfortable about revealing it to Storm. "I'm just... saying what happened. I don't know, I just want to talk to him."

"I can't help you."

Sonic sighed. "Yeah, I get that. Thanks for the help Storm."

Storm nodded and closed the door to the room. Sonic was about to leave the hallway to go searching for Jet, but he then realized that he didn't have any idea to begin his search.

_He probably went to the Gear shop,_ Sonic whispered to himself. He shook his head. _He told me that he didn't really like the shop that much. Maybe he's in the arcade or something playing a racing game or something._ Sonic shook his head again. _No, why would he want to be racing now. That's the last thing he would want to do._

Sonic stepped on the elevator, conflicted as to which button to press. He thought about it for a couple of moments until he realized exactly where Jet would be if he needed to calm down. Sonic hit the top button and rode the elevator as high as it could go. As the elevator doors opened, Sonic stepped out into the dome. Since the ship was docked, the clouds were not rushing by as they normally did, but their was still a great view of Oni Valley.

As Sonic had expected, Jet was standing by one of the windows, watching the town like they did the other day. Sonic was almost afraid to approach him, but Jet seemed to be calm enough, so he took the risk. Though, when Sonic got close enough to Jet, he noticed that he was trying very hard to hold back a couple of tears.

Jet didn't notice Sonic at first, but when he did, the tears started coming. "What are you... doing h-here?"

"I wanted to see you. I had a bad lunch without you being there."

"Aren't you mad at me? I gave you so many reasons for you to not want to talk to me and you're still out there looking for me."

"Jet, we had a fight, and we said some things that we regret. Don't most couples do that?"

Jet shook his head. "I'm the only one who said things that are regretful. You just had to stand there and take it."

Sonic put his hand on Jet's shoulder sympathetically. "Well, I'm fine, Jet. I didn't understand how you were feeling and you got mad at me. Can we just... go back to how things were?"

Instead of answering Sonic with a simple response, Jet proceeded to kiss Sonic deeply on the lips. It was Jet's form of apology to let his lover know that he was sorry and that he would never say anything cruel or unreasonable again. Jet prolonged the kiss as long as he could in order to further create that message.

Though, the two of them kissed for so long, it gave someone else the chance to take the elevator up to the dome, exit the elevator, and catch the two of them in the act. The grey albatross, whose goal was to find Wave, was shocked at first, but didn't really think too much of it. His reaction was simply returning to the elevator and looking around at the rest of the ship. Even though it was weird, he knew that Sonic and Jet probably needed their privacy.

Sonic and Jet then separated the kiss, gasping for a bit of air after holding it for so long. Sonic panted for a moment, but gave Jet a smile.

"Apology accepted."


	19. Master Flyer's Dance

Feel the Air

Chapter 19 – Master Flyer's Dance

After their encounter in the 'Dome of Feelings', everything in Sonic and Jet's relationship seemed to fix itself. Although, they were both still competitive and they still liked to one-up each other, they managed to restrain their competitiveness.

The two of them still had the chance to leave the ship for a little over an hour, so they took the chance to wander around Oni Valley again. Though, after realizing that they've already did their tour of Oni Valley, they decided to get their Gear and do some flying around the beautiful town.

The two of them found a good empty place to take off. When they flew into the air, they began truly feeling the coolness of the wind without being constricted by competition. This time, Sonic and Jet were able to enjoy their time in the air together.

While in the air, the two of them tried to concentrate on keeping themselves balanced, but they constantly found themselves looking at each other. It was as if they were connected in some way. It was as if they were serving as each other's balance.

It was such a magical experience for them that when they landed to re-enter the ship, it felt almost sad to have it all end. After making it back to the lobby, the whole ship still felt entirely empty, even though everyone had re-entered already.

"So... what should we do now?" Sonic asked.

"Well, my stomach has been killing me for the past hour," Jet responded. "Why don't we go grab some grub at the buffet?"

"Eh, I don't know about you, but the food at the dining hall sounds kind of good right now."

Jet grunted. "But there aren't any chili dogs in the dining hall. I would have to go through all of the trouble to put on something nice just to get food that I don't even want."

Sonic put a hand on Jet's shoulder. "Does it help if I told you that I'll be there in something nice, also?"

Jet blushed. "Yeah, that does help a little."

Sonic smiled. "Good. Let's head to our rooms and get dressed. I'll being waiting for you at the dining hall in a half hour."

"I look forward to it."

They each went up to their deck, hand-in-hand, and went to their respective rooms. Upon entering his room, Sonic was greeted by Tails and Knuckles. Tails was still laying on his bed, watching his... program, but Knuckles was actually getting classy clothing on.

Sonic smiled and chuckled. "What's with this whole get-up, Knuckles? I don't see you as the classy type."

"Well, Sonic. If you must know, you're not the only one who has a date tonight for the Master Flyer's Dance."

Sonic gave Knuckles a confused look. "I'll ask about who would be crazy enough to ask you out on a date later. What do you mean by Master Flyer's Dance?"

"Oh, I guess you weren't on the ship while they mentioned it." Knuckles briefly paused to put on a white shirt. "A dance is being held on Deck 8 in one of the main dance rooms. It's apparently to congratulate all of the racers who have made it this so far."

"That doesn't sound like anything you would go to... ever."

"Yeah, but as I told you, I have a date. So now, we're going to go to this dance and we're going to have a good time."

"Correction. You're going to force yourself to have a good time so that you can impress your date."

Knuckles sighed. "Sonic... why do you have to suck the fun out of everything?"

Sonic scoffed. "Are you kidding? I make everything better. How could you say such a thing that I suck the fun out of everything."

Knuckles rolled his eyes while Tails attempted to hold back a chuckle. "Because you do."

"Whatever. I guess I'll ask the dreaded question. Who would be crazy enough to ask you out on a date?"

"Well, it's the funniest thing. Twig just walks up to me and asks m-."

"Liar," Sonic said, interrupting Knuckles. "Twig doesn't really like you and you know it."

Knuckles points to Sonic. "See. Fun sucker."

"Call me whatever you want. Just face it that you didn't find any good chick for the dance and you're just making this all up."

"No, I'm being entirely serious. The girl from Team Adventure, Bubblegum, just decided to walk up to me and admire me on my flying technique. We got to talking and she asked me out to the dance after they announced it."

"Knuckles, have you softened? What about the 'no dating the enemy' policy?"

"Well you seem perfectly fine with breaking it, so I thought, why not? Besides, look how terrible Babylon is doing with you dating Jet. If I do the same thing with Bubblegum, you might as well be thanking me."

"Yeah, whatever. We'll see what happens. I have to get ready for my own date."

Knuckles sighed. "See, that's not fair. I don't even get to make fun of you about your date because I already did."

Sonic smiled. "All apart of my evil plan." Sonic then went through the closet after Knuckles stepped aside from it. He took his suit from the closet and quickly got dressed so that Jet wouldn't beat him to the dining hall.

A couple of minutes later, Sonic was there to greet Jet. They hugged each other before entering.

"You actually look really handsome in a suit, Jet."

Jet blushed. "You look pretty good yourself."

They found themselves a table and did their normal routine. They order their drinks and food. Sonic tried something intricate while Jet found the most mundane thing on the menu that he knew he might actually enjoy: a plain steak.

"So have you heard about the Master Flyer's Dance?"

"Yeah, Storm was talking about it back at the room. He was bothering me a lot about if I had a date for the dance. It was weird, actually. He asked me a few questions about my relationship status and whether or not I had my eye on somebody."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him that I was busy and that I didn't really feel like asking questions. That's not really a lie, so it works. But I had to sneak out my suit and dress out in the hallway."

Sonic chuckled. "Really? If our relationship is forcing you to dress out in the hall, we should probably do something about it."

"I'll tell him eventually. How does 20 years sound?"

"Oh, that's great!" Sonic said sarcastically. "It will be so perfect. We'll be 20 years into our relationship and we'll finally just tell them on the spot. They'll never know what hit them."

Jet let out a small laugh. "Geez, it was just a joke. You don't have to be like that."

"Heh, sorry. Let's talk about the dance."

"I don't know. Everyone I passed said something about going to the dance."

"Even Knuckles is going to the dance with a date."

"Really? Knuckles has a date. The girl must've paid a lot for that to happen."

"Yeah, I'll tell you about her later," Sonic said with a slight chuckle. "But, I don't know. I didn't really say anything about going with you to the dance, because I didn't know if you would want to go or not."

"Well... it might be fun."

"You want to go?"

"Yeah, I do."

Sonic smiled. "It's a date, then."

Jet began to lean in to give Sonic a quick kiss, but quickly retracted himself when he saw Wave coming his way. 'Why does that keep happening?' Jet thought to himself.

Wave, who was followed by Twig, said, "Why are the two of you just sitting here by yourself?"

Sonic thought about it for a second and responded, "We were going to do a... double date... and... our dates never showed. I guess."

Wave scowled at them. "Well, if you keep sitting like this, some people around here are going to get the wrong idea about you two. Can we join you?"

Sonic smiled. "Yeah, that's fine."

Wave and Twig took a couple of seats at the table. At first, the table was a little quiet, which was making Twig a bit uncomfortable.

Twig then stood up from his chair and said, "I guess I'll just go to the bathroom and wash up before the dinner comes." Twig then kept patting Sonic on the shoulder. Sonic was getting bugged by it, but then he eventually realized that this was Twig's gesture to say 'Help me out here.'

"I should probably go, too. We'll be right back."

Twig then took Sonic aside to another room, a bead of sweat going down his brown fur. "Sonic, this is already getting ridiculous. Wave asked me out to the Master Flyer's Dance, and I really wanted to say no. I don't dance, Sonic!"

"Please! Just one more night, Twig, and you'll be free of her forever."

"One more night?"

"Yes, I'll even be the one to tell Wave to leave you alone and take the blow for it."

Twig thought about it for a second and then sighed. "Fine."

Sonic brought Twig in for a hug. "You're the best friend ever, Twig. You're really doing me and Jet a huge favor."

Twig smiled and nuzzled into Sonic. A good friendship really does pay off sometimes.

Shortly after Sonic and Twig's small conversation, the liveliness of the group perked up a bit. Though, it didn't take long after their meals for all of them to eagerly leave for the dance room on Deck 8 to get the whole party started.

Since the four of them got there a little bit late, the dance had already started and people were already sprawled out on the dance floor. Sonic could spot Knuckles dancing with his date, which Sonic assumed was Bubblegum. Jet and Wave saw Storm awkwardly sitting at the tables at the edge of the dance floor, clearly having no date.

Wave eagerly went out onto the dance floor and dragged Twig along with her. It was a fast-paced song, so Wave was quick to get into the beat of the music. Twig, on the other hand, just awkwardly stood there, wondering what the heck he was doing there.

Jet and Sonic wanted to go out there on the dance floor, but they realized that there was a problem. Jet looked at Sonic and said, "It's kind of packed in here. Someone will see us dancing and put two and two together."

Sonic sighed. "Yeah, I know, you're right. Maybe we can wait until this place dies down a bit before we start some dancing of our own."

"Or... we can wait until everyone leaves and we have the whole dance floor to ourselves."

Sonic smiled. "That sounds better. But that might take awhile. What should we do?"

Jet pointed over to the tables and said, "Storm is over there by himself. We can keep him company for a little bit."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Sonic and Jet went over to the tables and approached Storm. "Mind if we join you?" Sonic asked.

"I could use a little company," Storm responded sullenly.

"Couldn't find a date?" Jet asked.

"No."

Jet looked over at Sonic and frowned. Sonic got the message. 'I feel bad for him.'

"Well, we're here for you, Storm," Sonic reassured him."

Storm nodded. "That means a lot."

The three of them sat there for the next hour, mostly in silence, but they were able to find some topics to talk about. Though, most of the time, they simply watched as the dance floor slowly dwindled to less and less people. Eventually, Twig and Wave went over to the table to join them after doing both fast and slow dancing. Sonic and Jet could only imagine how uncomfortable Twig must've been feeling.

The five of them weren't having the best time in the dance room, and it was clear that everyone in there was having far more fun than they were. So they all just sat there for another half hour, pretending to have a good time.

Those minutes went by quickly, and the ballroom had dwindled down to a few people dancing sleepily on the dance floor.

"I'm probably just going to go back to my room," Twig finally said, breaking the silence in the group. "I'm getting kind of tired."

"Would you like me to walk you back to your room?" Wave asked, hoping he would say yes."

"No, you should stay here and keep these three from doing anything crazy," Twig said with a bit of tired sarcasm. "They're bulging with energy."

"But... I want to walk you back to your room."

Twig, who regretted it the next day, said something through his exhausted crankiness. "I'm gay." He then left the group, heading to his room to meet up with his one true boyfriend: his bed.

Wave didn't even know what to say to that, while Jet and Sonic repressed chuckles from Twig's response. They almost thought that Wave was just going to blow up, but she didn't have much energy left in her to do any exploding.

Wave calmed herself down before saying, "Well, this place is a total bust. Come on, Storm. Let's get out of here."

Storm then stood up and walked out with Wave. But before the two of them entered the elevator to head back to Deck 9, Storm stopped and said, "I think I left something in the dance room."

"Whatever. I'll see you back in the room." Wave entered the elevator and Storm ran back to the dance room. Though, instead of going back to the tables, he hid in a place next to the DJ where Sonic and Jet couldn't see him.

He hid there for a minute and then went over to the DJ and said, "I would like to make a request."

The DJ turned his head and responded, "And what would that request be?"

"Whatever slow-moving, romance-y song you got."

"You got it, sir. We need some more slow ones in the program. After this song, I'll play something nice."

"Thanks." Storm then sat back down at his original hiding spot and stared at Sonic and Jet, who were just sitting at the table, not talking much to each other.

The two of them waited as another song came and went without them dancing to it. Though, that's when Storm's romantic song played. Sonic and Jet both woke up from their somewhat trance and listened to the warm song that played.

At that point, Sonic couldn't take being a coward anymore and turned to face Jet. He reached out a hand, offering to have a dance with Jet. Jet, who was smiling from the offer, took Sonic's hand and they went to the center of the dance room. They didn't even care if anybody was watching them. They were in love, and there was nobody on that ship who had the ability to take that away from them, no matter how hard they tried.

The two of them began to sway to the beat of the music, both in each other's arms. At that moment, they imagined themselves in an empty ballroom, dancing by themselves, even though there were a few people staring at them. One of those people was Storm.

He wanted to see if what he saw in the 'Dome of Feelings' wasn't just a fluke, and Sonic and Jet more than satisfied his curiosity.

They truly did love each other.

'But, Wave likes Jet...'


End file.
